


Maybe It's Just Us

by mizdiz



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baby Fic, F/M, Prison (Walking Dead), Slow Burn, Unplanned Pregnancy, does it count as slow burn if they have sex in the first chapter?, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 10:03:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 67,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16093400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizdiz/pseuds/mizdiz
Summary: “Look, I don't know what to tell y'all. Carol's pregnant, it's mine, it wasn't on purpose, and we ain't a couple. That's it, that's all there is.”Spoiler alert: That isn't all there is.Baby fic. Prison era. Canon divergence.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome!
> 
> quick notes, and then i'll leave you to it:
> 
> 1\. i didn't include any warnings, so just know that this fic includes typical twd violence, a bit of smut, some fucked up situations, and a lot of descriptions of pregnancy 
> 
> 2\. this is obviously canon-divergent. it kind of is ambiguously canon up until the infection that goes through the prison, and that's when it becomes explicitly au. mika and lizzie aren't in this because lizzie is horrifying, so let's just assume their dad lived and never talk about them again. if you're wondering if carol is still teaching kids how to use weapons, the answer is: of course, she just never gets caught so it's never talked about. just so you know that's the setting you're walking into
> 
> 3\. that's actually all i had to say. have fun reading. comment, kudo, etc., and come join me over at waynedunlaptheorgandonor.tumblr.com
> 
> deuces,  
> -diz

When all was said and done, and he caught himself tracing the story back to the very beginning, Daryl found everything started that one stormy evening in August when he royally fucked up.

 

He was the reason she got bit.

 

It was meant to be a normal run, as all runs were intended to be until they weren’t. The simplicity of it was such that it didn’t even occur to Daryl to be anything but his usual amount of cautious, and that was his first mistake. He never should have allowed repetitive success get his guard down, but that was something that was only beneficial in hindsight.

 

Carol was the one who went with him. That was mistake number two. Not because Carol was incompetent, but because he wanted her to be there, even though she didn't need to be. He was the one who suggested she tag along, coming up with some bullshit excuse, saying, “You know more about this  _ Home and Garden _ crap than I do.” Which was true, sure, but he was still more than capable of reading off a list and gathering the supplies they needed for the kitchen and garden. But it’d been a while since he’d gotten a chance to spend time with her; it was an entirely selfish request that would have changed absolutely everything if he had never made it.

 

But he did make it, and she accepted it, and in the beat-up Chevy Cavalier that they rode out of the prison gates, he listened to her talk about the new residents she’d been making a point to get to know and he’d been actively avoiding, and she never pressured him to fill in her gaps with his own words, because she was one of the few that simply understood that he had very few to offer.

 

They got to their destination with minimal incident, say for a quick swerve around a couple walkers, and a mild debate about which CD to play. (Carol won, because he found he lost a good chunk of his spine whenever she was involved.)

 

The store was a local place Glenn and Maggie had passed by some time ago on a different errand. It was a small town’s B-list attempt at a Bed Bath & Beyond, which meant it was half the size and half the quality, but this was a ‘take what you can get’ type of world, and so they had to make do.

 

It was located in a tiny strip mall, where there was also a used bookstore, a pet shop, and a small cafe. He saw Carol eyeing the bookstore with mild interest, and made a note to stop in there before they headed back, provided they didn’t come across any trouble. 

 

They got out of the car, Daryl shouldering a backpack and his crossbow, and Carol pulling out a knapsack and a rifle out of the backseat. From his pocket, Daryl uncrumpled a list with Hershel’s messy doctor’s scrawl, and gave it another once over. 

 

  * Baking dishes
  * Serving platters
  * Silverware
  * Tomato cages
  * Wash rags
  * Gardening trowels
  * Seeds 



 

It went on. Non-essentials, but helpful, and they’d had the downtime to make the trip, so no harm no foul. Carol was the one who mentioned it’d be nice to have some more kitchen supplies now that the prison was becoming more crowded, and the makeshift items weren’t cutting it as well anymore. Daryl had helped Carl rig up some wire around the tomatoes, but they kept slouching over anyway, and Glenn had somehow managed to break three different trowels and had since been banned from the gardens.

 

With the instinctual hearing of a hunter, Daryl listened closely after the last door to the car was shut. The wind was coming from the southeast and was picking up a little speed from when they left. In the distance, there were some dark clouds that weren’t an immediate threat, but were something to keep an eye on. Daryl heard no signs of life, or lack thereof, and motioned silently for Carol to follow him.

 

The front of the store was locked with rusted chains. Daryl held his hand out, and Carol wordlessly handed him her rifle. With the butt of the gun, Daryl whacked at the chains until they broke apart and slid to the ground with noisy, metallic clanging. The two of them stood stock still, waiting.

 

When the walker slammed itself hard against the glass door, Daryl took a single step back, and Carol drew in a sharp intake of breath, but neither of them were truly frightened, used to it by now. Carol pulled a knife from her belt, and nodded to Daryl, who opened the door just wide enough for Carol to drive the blade into the walker’s chomping, snarling face. Together, they moved it out of the way, and stepped into the store. Daryl handed Carol back her gun, and gestured for her to go forward. He armed himself with his crossbow, and followed her close behind.

 

The place hadn’t been picked through, at least not in any serious capacity. It wasn’t surprising, given that it housed mainly supplies that held little value in the apocalyptic world. Only people like themselves, who had managed to secure a semi-stable home, had much use for the items inside. 

 

“Kitchen stuff is this way, I’ll go see what I can find,” Carol whispered to him.

 

“I’ll come with,” Daryl said immediately, but Carol shook her head.

 

“We’ll be done quicker if we each take a task. You head that’a way. The things we need for the garden are over there,” she said, nodding her head towards a hanging sign that, sure enough, read ‘GARDENING’ in big letters. At Daryl’s skepticism, she added, “The store is small. You’ll hear me if I need you, and I’ll hear you.”

 

Daryl felt an instinctual protest threaten to rise up, but he pushed it down, knowing that Carol didn’t appreciate her abilities being questioned. It wasn’t even that he doubted her—she had more than proven herself over the past year or so—but there was a lingering protectiveness he harbored over her from the farm that would probably always be there. But that was his shit to deal with, not hers, and so he kept his mouth shut and nodded instead. 

 

She headed her direction, and he had no choice but to head his. With his bow out in front of him, he used it to push through cobwebs, and he scratched his nose as he breathed in the dust he disturbed from off the ground. 

 

He found the garden section and began swiftly moving down an aisle, gathering supplies in his backpack. He had a keen sense of observation, and honed in on the things on his list quickly and efficiently. 

 

It was when he was reaching for a second trowel that a hand with flaking skin and visible bone grabbed hold of his wrist through the other side of the shelf.

 

He startled reflexively and ran the back of his knees into a rack of rakes and hoes. They clanged together in an echoing choir, and Daryl swore under his breath. The walker was still reaching out desperately towards him. Daryl raised his crossbow, but the gap wasn’t big enough to get a bolt through.

 

He snatched his bag off the ground and shuffled slowly around to the opposite aisle. At the sight of Daryl, the walker pulled back its hand and opened its mouth wide, its jaw swinging out of its socket on the left side. It ambled towards Daryl, a low, insistent groan coming from its throat. Daryl had his bow poised and aimed, ready to shoot, when an unexpected snarling sounded right in his ear.

 

He swung around just in time to come face to face with another walker. It had long, scraggly hair and only one eye. Daryl shot his already prepared bolt into its remaining eye, and as it collapsed onto the ground, he turned back around to the walker still limping his way.

 

It was too close to shoot in time, and he didn’t have a hold on his knife, so he grabbed it by its weathered and torn shirt and threw it bodily behind him to give him the distance he needed.

 

This was mistake number three.

 

In the commotion, Daryl hadn’t heard Carol rush to his aide. When he threw the walker, it stumbled ungracefully, colliding directly into Carol’s front. Before she had the time to react, Daryl watched in horror as the walker impacted her in just the right way that its teeth sunk down into her shoulder.

 

Carol didn’t scream, just let out a surprised gasp, as Daryl’s brain went entirely blank. Acting purely on impulse, he pulled the arrow out of the dead walker on the floor, and drove it into the soft base of the skull of the walker chopping down on Carol. 

 

He yanked it off of her, its body slumping to the tile in a heap. He didn’t take the time to think, but merely acted as he took a rough hold of Carol and ripped her jacket partially off in a frenzy.

 

She said nothing, didn’t even move, as though frozen in place, eyes staring blankly out at nothing. Her jacket hung onto her by one arm, while Daryl pulled at the collar of her cotton t-shirt and examined the skin.

 

It was red, and there were indentations in the shape of teeth, but there was no blood. 

 

_ No blood. _

 

He pressed the pads of his fingers all over her, checking and rechecking, until, finally satisfied, he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, and dropped his head onto her chest. 

 

“Skin’s not broken,” he muttered. “Fucker couldn’t bite through your jacket. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

 

He realized after several beats that his head was still pressed against her. Embarrassed, he pulled away, willing his heart to return to a normal pace. 

 

Carol, although breathing hard, appeared remarkably calm. She swallowed thickly and nodded at him, pulling her jacket back on. 

 

“No harm done, then,” she said, and offered him a weak smile he in no way returned. In fact, he refused to meet her eye entirely, collecting his supplies up in a hurry and shouldering it all.

 

“You get everything?” he asked curtly.

 

“Mostly. There are a few other things we could—”

 

“Just leave ‘em,” Daryl cut her off, suddenly anxious to get the hell back to the prison. What had he been thinking, bringing her out here? He should have known better; should have known that he was too vulnerable when she was around, and that vulnerability made him clumsy, and that clumsiness got people killed. “Let’s get out of here.”

 

But before the words even fully left his mouth, a clap of thunder sounded, so loud the building shook. 

 

“Sounds like a storm’s coming,” Carol said, unnecessarily, as raindrops began to pitter patter on the roof. Daryl sighed.

 

“Don’t wanna stay in here,” he told her.

 

“We shouldn’t drive out there in the rain. If it gets bad? If we get stuck? We’re better off just waiting it out.”

 

She was right, of course, but that didn’t make Daryl feel any better. He glanced at the two walkers slumped on the ground, the one with its hanging jaw still wide-mouthed as it had been on Carol’s shoulder. 

 

“Let’s go next door,” he suggested.

 

“The bookstore? Why? We’re already in here.”

 

“There might be more of ‘em, and the bookstore’s smaller,” Daryl said as a bullshit excuse. He expected Carol to call him on it, so he headed purposefully towards the exit before she got the chance. After a beat or two, he heard her fall in step behind him.

 

“Wait,” she said to him as they passed by the registers. He turned to her, an expression of annoyance turning to bemusement as he saw her rummaging through a shelf. She looked up at him, tossed something, and said, “Catch.” Instinctively, he caught it, and then looked down at his hands. It was a Snickers bar. “No one’s raided the checkout aisle candy yet,” Carol said, by way of explanation, smiling wide at him as she shoveled the junk into her bag. Daryl offered the slightest upturn of his lip at her, before beckoning her towards him to rush her along.

 

Outside it wasn’t quite yet a downpour, but the dark clouds looming suggested that it would be soon. Rain still soaked them both as Daryl made quick work of the lock on the bookstore door. He hovered in the entrance, drew his knife, and banged the blade hard on a bit of metal on the doorframe, letting the noise ring out throughout the store, not intending to make the same mistake twice.

 

The two of them waited, holding their breath, but no movement came from inside. Daryl nodded at her, and they stepped over the threshold.

 

The bookstore was tiny, but Daryl made a careful walkthrough anyway, checking down each aisle to make sure it was clear, while Carol eyed the abstract artwork hanging on the walls, and ran her finger down the spines of a few novels. The whole place smelled like stale incense and dust, with the underlying layer of death that permeated everything nowadays.

 

“Good a place as any,” she said, breaking their silence. Daryl grunted an affirmation in response. She furrowed her brow at him, but he turned away before she felt the need to comment on it. He was having a hard time being around her at the moment, given that he’d almost just gotten her killed.

 

He busied himself by stepping behind the front counter and rifling through the drawers, where there were various knicknacks, a couple cough drops, and plenty of pens and bookmarks. He glanced up briefly to see Carol across the room, settling down on the floor, her knees drawn to her chest, as she rifled through her bag.

 

“Thirsty?” she asked him, holding out her canteen. He shook his head, and looked away. In his periphery he saw her take a swig and then sit it back down. 

 

Outside, the rain began to hit harder and the wind picked up speed. Through the glass of the front door, a bright flash of lightning struck, a booming roll of thunder closely following. Carol hummed thoughtfully, and said, “We may be waiting here a while.”

 

Under normal circumstances, Daryl would have welcomed the opportunity to have some quality time with her, but he still couldn’t shake the mental image of the limp-jawed walker trying to tear at her flesh. 

 

In lieu of a response, Daryl walked over and began pushing a shelf over to cover the front door. Carol moved to get up, asking, “You need any help,” but Daryl merely grunted out a, “Nah,” and took his convoluted feelings and funneled them into the physical act. 

 

“You okay?” Carol asked him warily when he finished the task, heaving a little as he stood straight again. 

 

“Fine,” he said, and walked as far away from her as he could get without her leaving his sight. He threw himself down on his back, using his lumpy backpack as a pillow, and stared angrily up at the ceiling, not entirely sure what he was even angry at. Himself, probably, that was usually the answer.

 

He heard Carol get up, and he braced himself for her confrontation, but instead he just listened as she walked along the creaking, wooden floors, pulling books off the shelves. When she seemed to have settled on one, her footsteps trailed back to her corner across the room from him, and they settled into an uneasy silence for nearly an hour, the only sounds coming from an occasional cough, the turning of her pages, and the storm raging outside.

 

Just when Daryl felt himself becoming bored enough to come out of his pout, Carol sighed. He glanced over. She set her book face down on her lap and stretched her arms up over her head. The room was starting to grow dark as the clouds grew heavier still. 

 

“I don’t think the storm is going to let up any time soon,” she said with a yawn, turning to look out the window where pebble-sized pieces of hail were now pelting the ground. Daryl was wont to agree, although he didn’t say so. “Are we staying here tonight?”

 

At this, Daryl shrugged, awkward in his current position, and Carol set her jaw, finally becoming visibly annoyed by his behavior. She picked up her canteen and knife and stood. She walked over to a closed door and knocked on it a couple times.

 

“What are you doing?” Daryl asked despite himself. 

 

Carol didn’t answer him. Instead, when nothing moved on the other side of the door, she tried the handle, which turned easily, and pushed it open. She stepped inside, shut the door behind her, and Daryl debated getting up to follow her, but knew it was a ridiculous impulse that she would find insulting. She stepped out a couple minutes later, her face slightly damp. 

 

“Bathroom,” she explained to his questioning expression, nodding towards the room she had just come out of. “I took a piss, washed off my face. Also, I found these.” She held up two candles. “You got a lighter?”

 

Wordlessly, Daryl reached into his pocket and pulled out his Zippo. He tossed it her way and she caught it easily with one hand. She then walked towards him, and, ignoring his involuntary tensing, slid down the wall until they were sitting side-by-side.

 

“Now,” she said sweetly, lighting the candles and sitting them an arm’s length away. “Are you going to tell me what crawled up your ass?”

 

Daryl blinked at her in surprise, her matter-of-fact expression haloed by the orange glow of the flames.

 

“What?” he asked.

 

“You’ve been avoiding me since you killed the walkers next door. Why?”

 

“Ain’t been avoiding you,” Daryl blatantly lied. “Talking to you right now, ain’t I?”

 

“Only ‘cause I started talking to you first.” She nudged him with her shoulder, and he felt his resolve weaken. “Go on now, what gives? Did I do something wrong?”

 

Daryl groaned internally, because of course she’d have to go and assume she’d caused his temper tantrum, when in reality he was just stewing in his usual pot of self-hate. And now he’d have to find a way to  _ explain  _ that to her. With  _ words _ .

 

“Almost got you killed,” he said in his best mumble. Carol’s forehead wrinkled in what appeared to be genuine confusion, which genuinely confused him, because that much, at least, seemed obvious.

 

“How the hell do you figure that?” she asked and Daryl scoffed.

 

“You got bit. Only reason we’re sitting here talking is ‘cause you insisted on wearing a jacket in August in  _ Georgia _ and the thing had a fucked up jaw.”

 

“But we  _ are _ sitting here talking, so what’s the problem?” Carol said, as though it were that simple. “Besides, that still doesn’t explain how it would have been your fault even if I  _ had _ gotten bit.”

 

Daryl focused on picking dirt out from under his nail and shook his head. “I wasn’t paying attention. I  _ threw  _ the damn thing at you.” 

 

“And you killed it, too.”

 

“Yeah,  _ after  _ it bit you.” 

 

“Oh for christ’s sake.” She startled him then by tugging his arm to her lap and wrapping her hand around his. She met his eye and he willed himself not to look away. “Shit happens, Daryl. Any move we make can have scary consequences, but that doesn’t mean we can afford to sit around casting blame, especially on ourselves. You didn’t hear me come up behind you? Well, I didn’t announce myself either. I was the one who told us to split up in the first place. You can just as easily pin this on me.”

 

“But it ain’t your fault.”

 

“Exactly,” said Carol softly. “So let's agree that it wasn't either of our faults.”

 

The shadows of the candlelight danced on Carol’s cheek. He swallowed thickly and very quietly confessed, “I thought you was bit. I mean,  _ really _ bit, just for a minute there, you know? I really thought you were.”

 

The whole incident in the garden section of that damn store had lasted no more than a few seconds at most, but Daryl swore he’d seen his whole catastrophic future play out in front of him when he watched the walker dig its teeth into Carol.

 

_ Wrapping her wound even though they both knew there was nothing that could be done. _

 

_ Wetting a washcloth to put on her burning forehead as her fever rose ever higher.  _

 

_ Taking the burden away from her by putting her gun in his hand. _

 

_ Arriving back at the prison. Alone. _

 

“I did too,” Carol told him gently, tracing light circles onto his hand with her thumb. “But I wasn’t. We’re still here, Daryl, we’re still breathing, for another day at least.”

 

The anger in him dying down, he began to recognize the feeling inside him for what it really was: Fear. He had been afraid that he had lost her, and he spent so much of his life not having anything worth worrying over losing, that the feeling felt foreign, even now, even after having lost so much.

 

Because he felt protective over Carol. Because Carol was his friend. 

 

No, that wasn’t quite right.  _ Glenn  _ was his friend, Maggie, Beth, all of them.  _ Best  _ friend, maybe? But even that didn’t ring true. Rick was what a best friend was like, a brother almost, but then what was Carol? Family, surely, but not a sister, not blood. She was something he couldn’t put his finger on, other than the fact that she was deeply and desperately important to him. Maybe that was all the categorizing he needed. 

 

Of course he couldn’t express this to her, so he conveyed the sentiment by dropping his head down on her shoulder with a sigh. Her hand went up to pet his greasy hair. Daryl, who had always before treated touch with a fight or flight recoil, relaxed against her body. She smelled like sweat and the generic bar soap stocked in the prison showers. Her lips pressed gently on his temple, and he pulled away enough to look at her.

 

“‘M sorry,” he muttered to her. Whether he meant he was sorry for avoiding her or if he was still blaming himself, even he wasn’t sure, but Carol appeared to understand, giving him a nod. She regarded him for a long moment, her hand ghosting over his cheek almost unconsciously. 

 

He was completely thrown when she kissed him, his shoulders drawing up to his neck on their own accord. It was hardly even a kiss; more like a momentary, feather-light touch against his mouth with hers, but it was enough to send an electrical current all the way down his spine. She leaned back to gauge his reaction, and he knew she would find nothing in his face but total panic, as he couldn’t even pretend to rein it in.

 

She didn’t seem fazed by his reaction, as though she expected it, and perhaps she had. She smiled kindly at him and said, “We can, you know. If you want,” so calmly and gently, Daryl almost didn’t understand what she was suggesting.

 

His tongue was pure cotton, and he just stared at her like an idiot, but it couldn’t be helped. Carol had  _ kissed  _ him, and was now propositioning him in an abandoned, candlelit bookstore they were stranded in. He waited for her laugh, for her nudge to his ribs, the way she usually did when she teased him, but neither came. She meant it.

 

Daryl tasted acid on the back of his throat, and fought his impulse to completely pull away—maybe out of the bookstore entirely, to go hide in the rain. 

 

But he didn’t run. He swallowed down the urge and considered what was before him. 

 

Objectively, without accounting for any history or trauma or any nuance thereof, what was before him was a pretty woman inviting him to have sex with her.

 

Because she  _ was  _ pretty, not that Daryl usually bothered to notice such things, but he noticed then. He noticed the freckles dusted over her nose, the candlelight flames reflecting in her irises, and the way her hair curled in the humidity now that it had begun to grow out. He noticed the softness to her edges; the smoothness of her skin. 

 

He did not often concern himself with his libido, easily tossing it to the wayside. His sexual experiences were far and few between, and almost all had been regrettable. But this wasn’t someone Merle had tossed cash at to deflower his little brother. This wasn’t a nameless hookup in a seedy bar bathroom. This was  _ Carol _ . 

 

Somehow, that made it scarier.

 

But did that mean he didn’t want to do it?

 

The loud part of his mind said, “Yes! Pull away, get away, run away—as fast and as far as you can!” But the quieter, yet bigger part of him toyed with the idea that, “Actually, maybe we'd like to stay.”

 

“Why?” he asked when he finally found his voice. It wasn’t exactly what he meant to say, but it managed to encompass what he needed from her; an explanation for what it would mean if he did indulge in this. If they did this now, what would it change, in terms of their relationship? In terms of her expectations of him? She had to already know that he couldn’t promise anything, but he needed to be sure.

 

She shrugged one shoulder; the shoulder the walker had bit.

 

“Because we’re alive,” she said. He turned the words over and over in his head. 

 

“Okay,” he whispered finally, so quiet he thought she might not have heard him, which would have been unfortunate because he didn't think he could bring himself to say it again. But her gentle smile told him that she had heard him just fine, and so he told the frantic voice in his head to stuff it, and only tensed a little when she leaned in to kiss him once again. He even kissed her back. He even did more than that.

 

And on the dusty floor of the bookshop, mindful of the lit candles, and cognizant of the whipping wind against the windows, with warm flesh and rapid pulses, they were alive together. 

 

That, depending on how you looked at it, was mistake number four. 


	2. Chapter 2

What happened in the bookstore was something they definitely needed to talk about, so naturally, there was no time for them to do so.

 

The ride back to the prison was awkward. They were both tired from trying to sleep on an old hardwood floor after screwing like bunnies and then pointedly not discussing it. With aching joints and tension headaches, inside the car didn’t seem like the right place to discuss it either—or so they mutually made that their excuse, when neither of them attempted to bring it up. From the moment after Daryl rolled off her, all the way to the prison gates, their communication was limited to business talk only, and they both pretended it was normal. 

 

Then, when they got home, they immediately got swept up in a minor crisis that was going on, wherein there was a breach somewhere that was letting walkers in, few enough at a time that they could handle them, but problematic enough that they had to temporarily combine two cell blocks while they worked to fix it, and the rearranging was a complete clusterfuck. Everybody was hot and tired, and the prison was already stuffy with stale air, so doubling up—in some cases even tripling up—the cells was doing nothing to improve morale. Carol was directed to go help keep homicide at a minimum, while Daryl was put on the ‘secure the breach’ team, the whole thing culminating in a two day affair that led them both to their respective beds at the end of it for a brief coma to rejuvenate themselves, and thus, they did no talking.

 

Then Daryl was recruited to go on a two week supply run with Michonne. The council had decided it would make the most sense to get a jump on winter preparation as soon as possible, and with the growing numbers inside the prison, it was imperative that they had enough to get them through. The two of them were given a large van, rations, and a novel-sized list, and Daryl could do nothing but give Carol a tense nod and a promise of a safe return, knowing that words between them would have to remain unspoken even longer. 

 

The run with Michonne was almost fun. The two of them had a good chemistry, and would sometimes find old rundown shacks that reminded Daryl of home—his home Before—and would sit on the porch drinking moonshine in silence until darkness fell. 

 

It was a nice break from the prison. Daryl was glad they’d found a safe place to call their own, but he didn’t like being trapped, and excursions like this one made it so he didn’t go batshit inside the gates. But at night, when it was his turn to keep watch, his mind would wander. Sometimes, it would wander back to the bookshop, where he was trying hard to convince himself he felt nothing but physical gratification from the incident, even though he knew that was a bold-faced lie. Other times, it wandered back home, to wherever Carol may be, and he’d wonder, with a sour shame inside, if she was thinking about him too. 

 

Michonne didn’t seem to think anything was up with Daryl, or if she did she kept it to herself, and so he was free to fantasize, fret, and flounder as much as he pleased. (And truth be told, it did not please him one bit, doing any of those things, but he found they couldn’t be helped.)

 

They returned home, a couple days later than intended, after deciding to take the time to clear a herd outside a sporting goods store, knowing there would have to be some quality coats, gear, and maybe even weapons for them to loot. It was worth it, and they came back with a nice haul for the winter. Carol was there to give him a welcome home hug, but then had to excuse herself to return to the washrooms. Daryl resolved to catch her at the next opportunity, to finally hash out what exactly that night had meant. The universe, however, was once again working against him.

 

At first it was the watch schedule. Their shifts were such that they didn’t cross paths, and by the time they were off, it was too late in the day to do anything but sleep. This went on for a full seven days, until the schedule did its weekly rotation. 

 

Then there was a kitchen fiasco, where a newer resident had been put on cooking duty without much thought, and she managed to start a small fire and burn a not insubstantial amount of their food, and Carol was subsequently taken off laundry and assigned to the kitchen to act as somewhat of a manager. It meant that she had to organize the schedules, the meals, and the rations, and for another week, as she adjusted to her new position, Daryl’s only interactions with her came in the form of him bringing in fresh game for her to catalogue and portion out. 

 

By now, it had been 5 weeks, nearly 6, and so Daryl, seeing they were likely not going to have a natural lapse in work for them to get together, started to try and seek her out. One day he asked her if she wanted to come by his cell later to play cards, but she just thanked him and said she was too tired. A few days later, he sat next to her at lunch and they made idle chit chat, until she said, “Sorry, I’ve gotta run,” and got up and left with half her food still on her plate. 

 

It was around this time, around week 7, that Daryl was starting to suspect that it wasn’t just schedules keeping them apart. Daryl was getting the distinct impression that he was being avoided. 

 

He decided it was time to take matters into his own hands. On that Monday evening, when he found himself with an unlikely bit of free time, he headed to the kitchens.

 

Inside, there was the unintentional arsonist chopping zucchinis, a teenage boy stirring a stew, and Maggie standing behind them with a clipboard and a stubby pencil. 

 

“Daryl,” Maggie said when she noticed him loitering in the doorway. His empty hands said that he had no game to offer, and he didn't frequent the kitchens, so Maggie's bemused expression was understandable. “What can I do for you?”

 

Daryl hesitated. He'd expected to find Carol where Maggie was currently standing, and not finding her there was a bit like walking into the wrong classroom. He cleared his throat.

 

“You seen Carol?” he asked.

 

“She's not here, I’m covering her shift,” Maggie explained, gesturing with the clipboard for emphasis. “She wasn't feelin’ well this morning. I caught her throwin’ up and had to fight her to get her to go back to her cell and get some rest.” Daryl must have accidentally expressed his worry in his expression, forgetting to repress it, because she quickly added, “I'm sure she's fine. She didn't even seem that bad this mornin’, but she's been workin’ herself half to death anyway, I thought I'd give her a break.”

 

Daryl didn't like the sound of that, but just nodded anyway.

 

“Know where she might have gotten off to?”

 

“I'd check her cell.”

 

Daryl muttered a thanks and left the kitchen staff to it as he ambled off to Carol’s cell. To his frustration, she wasn't there either. 

 

He tried the usual places after that. She wasn't helping Beth with Judith. She wasn't down helping sort laundry. She wasn't in the gardens. He asked both Hershel and Rick if they'd seen her, which they hadn't, but then he started to get self-conscious, wandering around asking about her, so he didn't ask anyone else.

 

He was about to concede defeat. Part of him worried she really  _ was _ sick, and was off in the bathrooms puking her guts out, but there were enough people up and about that he was sure someone would have noticed if she was. More than likely, Daryl couldn't find her because she didn't want to be found.

 

But then he saw her. It was entirely by chance that he glanced that direction when he was headed back inside, but there she was, sitting up on a partially obscured hill beside the west watchtower.

 

She didn't seem remotely surprised when he mumbled a hello and sat down beside her. She just smiled an unsettlingly distant smile, and muttered her own greeting back.

 

“Maggie said you got sick. You okay?”

 

“Fine. I tried to tell her as much, but she wouldn't let it be, and I didn't see much point in fighting against a day off.”

 

“Somethin’ just not agree with your stomach?”

 

“Somethin’.”

 

“We pro’ly should talk.”

 

“Probably should.”

 

And they both fell silent. From where they sat on the small slope of the grounds, Daryl could see the expanse of the forest beyond the treeline starting to get swallowed by shadow as the sun began to set. The weather was mild, the curtain closing on summer and autumn sneaking in. There was a gentle breeze that toyed with the slight curls framing Carol’s face in his periphery. He chewed on his bottom lip.

 

“We should just forget it happened,” he said, after the silence had dragged out a good long while. “Go back to the way it was before.”

 

Carol sighed an unpromising sigh.

 

“We can't forget about it,” she said.

 

“We can,” Daryl insisted. Sitting there next to her, he was struck by how much he had  _ missed _ her over the past several weeks. If he never got the opportunity to make heads or tails over the feelings he felt that night in the bookshop it would be just fine, so long as he could keep her as a friend—a word that still was ill-fitting, but the best he had.

 

“No,” said Carol softly, with an almost imperceptible shake of her head. Daryl felt charged. He wasn't going to let this change them. He said,

 

“We  _ can _ . We'll just write it off as some dumbass thing we did and never talk about it again. People fool around all the time, it ain't gotta mean nothin’. And—”

 

“I’m pregnant,” Carol interrupted.

 

Whatever words Daryl was going to say next died in his throat. For approximately seven seconds, his mind was blank—Buddhist monk meditation levels of empty—and then, in one crashing moment, his mind was full of  _ everything _ . 

 

It was as though he were a journalist, running through the list at breakneck speed: Who, what, when, where, why,  _ how _ ?

 

“You sure?” he croaked, staring determinedly at the fading forest.

 

“I took a test,” Carol said with her eyes trained out past the fence as well. She breathed a humorless laugh. “And when I didn't want to believe that one, I took another. Almost took a third, but I didn't want to raid our supply over somethin’ I already knew.”

 

They hadn't been smart about it. Daryl was wracked with shock and fear, the likes of which he'd never before felt, but at the end of the day, he knew he didn't have a right to be, as they had been so completely and totally  _ not smart _ . It was like they had been a couple dumb teenagers, too caught up in passion to think of something as trivial as a condom, when in reality they were two grown-ass adults, living in a perpetual horror film where an unplanned pregnancy could mean the difference between life and death.

 

_ Stupid stupid stupid _ .

 

“What do we do?” asked Daryl dumbly. The tip of his tongue tasted like metal, which he was pretty sure meant he'd bitten through his lip, but he couldn't be bothered to care at the moment.

 

“Well,” Carol said, sounding pragmatic as she stretched her legs out in front of her and leaned back on her hands, eyes still avoiding Daryl. “I figure we've got two options. My guess is we pick one.”

 

Daryl's mind spelled the choices out for him very clearly:

 

  * Keep it
  * Don't keep it



 

Neither sounded fantastic. 

 

“Can you even…” he started. “Would the doc be able to…?” He faltered, but Carol seemed to understand.

 

“As long as women have been having babies, there have been women getting rid of babies. We'd be able to do it, if that’s what we wanted.” She paused, and Daryl felt her gaze finally fall on him. He forced himself to meet it, hoping she wasn't offended by the unbridled terror surely written all over his face. “Is that what you want?” she asked.

 

“I don't know,” Daryl said. He didn't mean it as a thinly veiled way of saying 'yes, but I want you to be the one say it.’ He didn't mean it as a way of saying he wanted to keep it. He meant it exactly the way it sounded. He didn't know. He had never known something less in his entire life.

 

“Yeah,” Carol breathed, turning her attention back to the trees. “Me either.”

 

A loaded silence fell between them. Daryl wanted to say something helpful or insightful, but every time he tried to sort out his thoughts, his brain went dial-up internet on him, and he was left with a 'trying to connect’ noise ringing in his ears.

 

“I'll support whatever you decide,” he said, because that's what he was supposed to say, and if he couldn't figure out what he  _ wanted _ to say, he could at least give her that.

 

“I think I’ve read that line in about a thousand romance books,” Carol mused. 

 

“Sorry,” Daryl muttered.

 

“Don't be, I appreciate it, it's just...if I didn't already feel like a knocked up sixteen year old, I sure as hell do now.” She got to her feet, and Daryl watched her dazedly, feeling glued to the ground. “We're not going to sort this out tonight. You need to process it. Come find me when you do.”

 

“'Kay,” said Daryl absently. It was possible he was going into shock, but he was too numb to be concerned about it. 

 

Carol opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, but decided against it. She gave him a defeated shrug, and without preamble, started down the hill.

 

Daryl sat still as a statue; he didn't know for how long, time didn't mean anything anymore. Darkness fell around him, and a decent sized welt formed on his bottom lip where his teeth had eroded the skin away.

 

His hands fell into his hands.

 

_ Fuck _ .

 

—-

 

Daryl began his morning the following day by watering a wild bunch of weeds with his own bile. Retching on an empty stomach, he choked up bitter acid. He straightened up, wiping his mouth and running nose with the back of his hand, and turned around to find Maggie eyeing him with concern.

 

_ Fantastic _ .

 

“You okay?” she called over to him. She was wearing gardening gloves and holding a trowel, arriving to the gardens for her shift, to see which of the plants had survived the temperature drop the night prior.

 

“Fine,” Daryl said stiffly, and then stalked off without another word, before she could pry anything else from him.

 

He was, in fact, not fine. He was so far from fine that fine felt like his chupacabra—a distant memory he was beginning to doubt had ever existed.

 

He’d slept about an hour at best, tossing and turning, replaying Carol's matter-of-fact “I’m pregnant,” over and over in his head like the world's most terrifying song. And in the few moments when those words weren't echoing inside his brain, he was remembering the cold way Carl had told him he'd shot his own mother in the head; how he'd had to end her life because childbirth had been too much. 

 

It was the worst idea ever, having a baby in this world. There was no way they could keep it. It wasn't about whether he wanted it or not; it was the simple fact that they  _ couldn't _ .

 

So what was he going to do? Go up to Carol and say, “Get rid of it,” and make her add another tally to the list of children she had lost due to him?

 

And what if she decided she didn't want to? He'd meant what he said—he’d be there to support any decision she made, but christ if the prospect of her saying the words, “I’m keeping it,” was enough to make his stomach churn dangerously once again.

 

He tried to occupy his mind with tasks. He couldn't go hunting—that offered entirely too much opportunity for thinking—so instead he took out about fifty walkers along the fenceline, changed the oil on his bike, took a truckload of corpses to the burn pile, and even attempted to help clean Cell Block A until he was shooed away for causing more burden than help. He didn't see Carol once.

 

Around dusk, he found himself lying on his back in his bed, eyes trained on the bunk above him, unseeing. He'd skipped dinner, as he had done with breakfast and lunch. He wanted to fall asleep, to turn his mind off for a while, but he knew that wasn't happening any time soon.

 

“Hey,” came a voice at his doorway an indiscernible amount of time later. He lifted his head just high enough to peer over and see Carol leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, face frustratingly blank.

 

He grunted in response, letting his head fall back with a flop.

 

“Maggie told me she saw you throwing up earlier and thought you may have caught whatever I had,” Carol said. “Seeing as what I had was morning sickness, I figured it was probably something else.” Her voice had a hint of amusement in it, but Daryl couldn't bring himself to grant her even a pity smile. “You want to talk about it?”

 

_ No, _ was the answer, of course. Daryl didn't want to talk about things in the best of circumstances, and he certainly didn't want to now, but he knew he couldn't avoid the conversation forever; knew the problem wasn't going to solve itself, no matter how much he wanted it to. No matter how much he wanted to wake up and have this all be some dumbass dream.

 

Reluctantly, he pulled himself into a sitting position. He searched his mind for a way to convey his feelings to Carol. Eventually, he gave up and simply offered her a helpless shrug with an accompanying sigh. She nodded in understanding 

 

“Yeah,” she said, as though he'd said something profound. She pulled the curtain hanging from his door shut to give them some semblance of privacy, and then took the few strides to his bed and sat beside him. Usually he wouldn't object to her closeness, but his anxiety felt tangible and he didn't want to infect her with it.

 

“I’m sorry I didn't tell you sooner,” she said, picking at a thread in his sheets. “I wanted to try and wrap my head around it before going to you.”

 

“S’fine.” He muttered it but he meant it. Despite every thought running around his head the past 24 hours, he had never once entertained the idea that she had kept it from him maliciously. He understood the need to process information; understood it intimately, in fact, with yet another stomach lurch.

 

“Can I ask you what you've been thinking?” she asked tentatively. “It doesn't matter what it is. I’m not expecting you to have the answer. I just need to know where you're at with this.”

 

How exactly to answer that, he wondered? A bottomless pit of worst case scenarios? Intrusive thoughts of Carl shooting Lori?  _ Bang, bang, bang _ , over and over and over again? Probably not what she wanted to hear.

 

“Still don't know,” he said evasively. “You?”

 

Carol seemed reluctant to answer. She blew a long exhale out of her nose and finally said, “I’m scared.”

 

God knew he was too, but the part of him that had to protect her told him she didn't need him to be scared right now; she needed him to help come up with answers.

 

“How do you feel,” he asked with an air of pragmatism that was entirely staged, “about both options? Go from there.”

 

Carol clicked her tongue absently, a thoughtful look on her face. “I lost a baby once,” she said unexpectedly. At Daryl's expression, she clarified, “I mean, before  _ her _ .”

 

For a moment he was at a loss. “You never told me nothin’ about that,” he said eventually.

 

“It's not something I usually advertise,” she said. “But in interest of full disclosure, it's probably best if you knew.” 

 

“What happened?”

 

“It was a long time ago, way back before she was even a thought.” Daryl didn't miss the way she always evaded Sophia's name. “Ed and I had been married just about a year. When he first started hitting me, it was only every once in a while, whenever I really pissed him off, but by our first anniversary he was beating me over every insignificant little thing.”

 

Daryl kept his mouth shut, but bristled inside. The Carol he'd met at the first campsite, the one who kept her head down and was at the beck and call to that waste of space husband of hers, seemed like such a distant memory he sometimes forgot that's how she had been for the bulk of her life before the turn.

 

“Then I got pregnant, and I was actually relieved, you know? He had my head twisted enough that I thought, yeah, sure,  _ I _ deserve the beatings, but there was no way he'd hurt me if I was carrying his innocent child.

 

“And for a while, that was true. He was still an asshole; called me bitch, whore, slut, told me the kid wasn't his, whatever he could think of, but for five months he kept his hands off of me.”

 

Carol took a steading breath, but her face betrayed no emotion. “The night it happened there was nothing special going on. Ed was just in a shit mood and I did something dumb. The Falcons had lost a game, and I made some stupid, offhand comment about how they hadn't been playing that well that season, and he was a few beers in, you know, so he went off, putting words in my mouth, saying I was calling him an idiot for rooting for that team, and I don't think he meant to do it, but when he pushed me I fell down the stairs. The impact of it sent me into preterm labor.

 

“The doctors and nurses, bless them, tried to stop the contractions, but my water broke and there was nothing they could do. I delivered a little boy at 22 weeks, and there was just no way he could survive, his lungs were so underdeveloped. He couldn't even cry.

 

“I never held him, didn't even look at him, because I knew he wouldn't live. I gave him a name for his death certificate, but that's it. His name was Jackson. Jackson Peletier. And the only thing Ed had to say about it? 'It probably was for the best, you're a real bitch when you're knocked up.’”

 

Daryl must have grabbed Carol’s hand during her story without even realizing he was doing it. He glanced down at their entwined fingers, as though surprised as to how they had gotten that way.

 

“You know what the worst part of that story is?”

 

_ The whole thing? _ thought Daryl.

 

“What?”

 

“I stayed with him. After he effectively killed my son, I stayed, and then went and had another child with him two years later.”

 

“Yeah well,” Daryl said, cognizant of the lattice work on the skin of his back, “it ain't always that black and white.”

 

They sat a while and let Carol's confession sink in. When she spoke again, her voice was smaller.

 

“The doctors, the day she was born, called her a 'rainbow baby,’ as in, the rainbow after the storm; a child born after another has died. But I don't know what they call the baby that comes after the rainbow baby is gone too. I’m afraid that it may be called a mistake.”

 

Daryl’s grip on her hand tightened.

 

“I don't know if I’m religious anymore,” she said. Now that she had started talking, it seemed as though it was all coming out in a flood. Daryl’s heart was heavy, wondering how many days, or even weeks, she had gone keeping all of this to herself. “But if everything  _ does _ happen for a reason, then what's the reason for this? Is it a punishment? Or is it supposed to be a gift? And how in the hell are we supposed to know the difference?”

 

The question may have been rhetorical, but Daryl pondered it anyway. He never had use for religion or God one way or another. He had felt, and still did, that you had to fend for yourself in the world, and if God wanted to give you a helping hand, then great, but don't bank on it.

 

“Maybe it ain't neither,” he said to her gently. “Maybe God's got nothing to do with it and it's just something we caused and something we gotta solve. Maybe it's just us.”

 

“That's even scarier,” Carol said.

 

“Why?”

 

“Because it means there's nothing there to help us make the right choice. There's no guidance, just guesswork.”

 

“'M sorry.”

 

“For what?”

 

“Doin’ this to you.” He looked her over. There was no evidence yet of what he'd done, but he knew that as they spoke, that small life he'd so carelessly put inside her was growing, changing her body against her will, and putting her own life on the line. 

 

“You're honestly blaming yourself for this?” Carol asked, almost sounding annoyed.

 

“I got you pregnant,” which were words he'd never thought he'd say to anyone, given his lackluster sexual history.

 

“I'm pretty sure I was there too. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was my idea in the first place.”

 

“I shoulda said no,” Daryl insisted. “Shoulda known better.”

 

“What have I said about casting blame? This isn't something we have the luxury of feeling guilty about. This is something we have to figure out and deal with, just like we do everything else.”

 

Daryl swallowed even though his throat was dirt dry. “Okay,” he said. She wanted him to be objective, so that's what he was going to do. “Let's think it through, then.”

 

“Okay, yes, let's do that,” she said, relieved, visibly glad to move the direction of the conversation towards logic instead of emotion. She started, “If we kept it, then we'd— _ I’d _ —have to get through the pregnancy and birth with the medical care we have available.”

 

“We got a real doctor now,” Daryl pointed out. “It ain't like it was when Asskicker was born.”

 

“But it's also not ideal. I had a few complications before, when she was born. Preeclampsia.”

 

“'S’that?”

 

“A medical condition some women get. High blood pressure, can cause organ failure; the only way to cure it is to give birth. Ed was so pissed because I was put on bed rest, not like that meant I still wasn't up all the time doing shit for him, doctor's orders be damned. Then they had to induce me two weeks early because my blood pressure got to the point where they were scared I was gonna stroke out. Having it once doesn't mean it'd happen again, but if it did we may not have the means to induce labor, and it can be fatal to the both of us.”

 

Daryl was quickly realizing he knew jack shit about pregnancy, as he tried to keep up with everything she was saying. What little he was understanding did nothing to lessen his concern that going through with the pregnancy would be entirely irresponsible.  _ Organ failure _ was not a particularly reassuring phrase.

 

“And then if the pregnancy and the birth did go smoothly,” Carol continued, “then we'd have a baby. We'd have a living, breathing child we'd have to try and keep safe. Here, in this world, where there’s more danger than I can even begin to keep track of.”

 

Her voice was laced with sorrow. She didn't need to tell Daryl she was thinking of Sophia emerging out of Hershel's barn for him to know that she was. He was too.

 

“I ain't worried about that part,” Daryl said. She blinked at him.

 

“Which part?”

 

“Keeping the kid safe. You too. The both of you. We got a place now, and we're better than we was before, and I'd die before I let anything happen to you, you know that. That ain't the thing I’m…” He trailed off, waving a dismissive hand, hoping Carol wouldn't press, but of course now she had to.

 

“No, tell me. What are you worried about?”

 

And there it was, the thing he didn't want to admit to himself, let alone aloud. He chewed on a cuticle and regarded Carol, searching for the words.

 

“I can keep the kid safe,” he said. “I can teach it how to hunt, and track, and shoot a gun. But I can't give it another daddy. It'd be stuck with me, and I don't know a damn thing about being a father, 'cept how to suck at being one.”

 

“Oh Daryl,” Carol breathed, her eyes suddenly bright. “Of all the things I’m afraid of, that's the one thing I'm not.” Daryl tried to avert his gaze but she grabbed him lightly by the chin and turned his head to keep him looking at her. “Listen to me when I say that if this baby was anyone else's—anyone else's on this whole damn planet—I wouldn't have given a second thought to what I should do. You are the  _ only _ one I’d trust enough to go through this with. And I mean that. One hundred percent.”

 

The back of Daryl's throat tasted like acid, and he couldn't keep still, suddenly itching to get away. She was always doing this—putting faith in him. And as good as it felt to be believed in, what happened when she was proven wrong? What had already happened, he thought, the image of Sophia once again flashing through his mind?

 

He forced himself to stay; to be present, and listen, and try and accept her praise even when he felt unworthy of it.

 

Carol said, “Did you want kids? Before, I mean, did you ever think you might want a family?” 

 

“I ain't even know what a family is supposed to be like,” Daryl admitted. “A proper one, anyhow.”

 

The truth was he never gave it a single thought, simply because he never believed he'd be put in a position where it was a possibility. Who would want to reproduce with Daryl Dixon? The world had enough white trash littering it to bother bringing in more.

 

“Neither do I,” Carol replied, running a hand through her loose curls. “All she had was a sick piece of shit father who looked at her twice, and a mother who was too weak to say anything about it. That isn't family, so what do I know?”

 

There was a 'but’ in her tone. Daryl waited, and when she didn't continue, he nudged her gently with his shoulder.

 

“What is it?” he asked.

 

“I wanted to be a mother,” she said quietly. “And I miss being one. And if the circumstances were different—if it were safe, if I weren't still grieving—I’d want to keep it, I know I would. And there must be some part of me that still wants to now, because we're sitting here talking about it. But doing what I want and doing what is smart are two different things. And plus, I don't want to saddle you with something you never asked for.”

 

“I told you, I'd support you either way,” Daryl said, and Carol was nodding her head before the words left his mouth.

 

“I know that, I do, and I believe with all of my heart that you'd go above and beyond for us, but I can't stand the thought of you resenting me, even a little. Or resenting the baby. Or what if you resent me for  _ not _ keeping it? What if I’m damned if I do and damned if I don't?”

 

Daryl frowned. “Wouldn't resent you either way,” he said. 

 

“You don't know—” but Daryl cut her off with a squeeze to the hand, and insisted,

 

“I do. I wouldn't resent you, and I sure as hell wouldn't resent the kid. It's your choice, but whatever you decide, we're in it together, okay? None of this resentment bullshit. It's me and you, just us, alright?”

 

Carol seemed unconvinced, but eventually let out a small, “Alright.”

 

Daryl ran his free hand over his face with a sigh. “I don’t think we’re gonna figure out the answer right now,” he said. As certain as he had been before about the abortion, Carol’s hesitancy was enough to make him rethink it, which was enough to make him dizzy and lightheaded.

“No, we’re probably not,” Carol agreed. “I need to know what you want to do, though, when you’ve come to a decision.”

 

“It’s ultimately up to you.”

 

“I know, but I want to make the choice with your feelings in mind. Let me have that, okay?”

 

Daryl nodded absently. “‘Kay.”

 

Carol lifted their joined hands to her mouth and gave his knuckles a chaste kiss. She untangled their fingers and went to stand. As she headed towards the door, Daryl called out to her.

 

“Yeah?” she asked.

 

“We’re gonna be okay,” he told her. She granted him a small smile and a nod, before slipping out of his cell, and Daryl hoped she believed him more than he believed himself.

 

—-

 

Around midnight, Daryl heard the distant sound of Judith fussing. Without conscious thought, he rolled out of the bed he hadn’t actually slept in for about 36 hours, and found himself walking down the hall to Rick’s cell, where Rick was rocking her in his arms, shushing her gently. 

 

“Sorry, did she wake you?” Rick asked when he saw Daryl approach.

 

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. Rick looked dead on his feet, with dark shadows under his eyes. He’d just come off his watch shift. “Want me to take her for a bit?” 

 

Rick’s forehead creased as he frowned. In the entirety of Judith’s short life, Daryl had never volunteered for baby duty, nor had anyone suggested he be assigned. 

 

“You sure?” Rick asked. Daryl willed himself not to look embarrassed, as though him offering to hold a crying baby in the middle of the night was something he did on a daily basis.

 

“Yeah, I can’t sleep, and you look like shit,” he said. Rick let out a small huff of laughter.

 

“Hey, if you’re offering, I’m not complaining,” he said. He handed Judith over to Daryl, who cradled her in the crook of his arm. He hadn’t held her recently, and she had grown substantially since that first time he held her months ago. She wasn’t quite as fragile as she had been then, but he was still uneasy at how small and helpless she seemed.

 

“I’ll just walk her around a bit,” Daryl said, watching Judith as she made huffy, angry noises in his arms; not quite crying, but threatening to soon. “She eaten?”

 

“Eaten, changed, I think she’s just tired but is too stubborn to go to sleep.”

 

“‘Kay,” Daryl mumbled, swaying her lightly side-to-side. “Bring her back in a bit.”

 

“Alright,” Rick said, the hint of bemusement in his voice getting overshadowed by exhaustion. “Thank you.”

 

Daryl nodded, and took Judith out past the cells full of sleeping residents, into the dining area where they were alone. He sat down on the table, and balanced Judith on his bent knees. She whined, thick, wet tears forming in the corners of her eyes, her lower lip out in a pout, looking so positively grumpy that Daryl had to smile. 

 

“Hey now, Asskicker,” he said to her in a whisper. “None of that.” 

 

She ignored him, her whines turning into small cries, her lower jaw grinding against the top. Daryl frowned, and gently pulled down her lip and examined her gums. On the bottom row, the faintest hint of white was poking up between the pink.

 

“Mm,” Daryl said with understanding. “That’s what’s botherin’ you, huh?” He took his pinky finger and pressed down lightly on the tooth trying to come through. Judith stopped scrunching her face enough for her to blink big, wet eyes at him, her cries turning to whimpers. “‘M sorry, sweetheart,” Daryl mumbled at her. “No one knew you was hurtin’.” 

 

He pulled her back into a cradling position, and, keeping his finger pressed against her sore gum, got to his feet and headed into the kitchens. Fumbling awkwardly with full hands, he managed to get ahold of a washcloth. He dipped it in a bucket of clean water, and replaced his finger in her mouth with the towel.

 

Judith immediately bit down on it, eyeing Daryl with wonder as her pain subsided a little. Gnawing on the washcloth her eyes began to droop, obviously just as exhausted as her father, and only now able to see sleep within reach without her aching mouth keeping her awake. Daryl bounced her gently, until she shut her eyes entirely, and her breaths evened out. 

 

They sat that way for sometime. Daryl marveled at the unwavering trust Judith portrayed in him, sleeping soundly in his arms. He felt an unfamiliar sense of pride, having figured out what was bothering her; having stopped her crying all by himself. He stroked the top of her impossibly soft head. She had made it this far. She was still alive. 

 

After Daryl put Judith to bed in the bassinet next to Rick, father and daughter lightly snoring in the dark, he went in search of a piece of paper and a pen. He scribbled two words on it, and folded it in his hand.

 

When he got to Carol’s cell, she was out like a light, curled in a ball, her blanket kicked down at her feet. She was trembling, almost imperceptibly, but Daryl saw it, and with his walk a noiseless hunter’s stride, he gently went over and draped the blanket back over her body.

 

He watched her for a moment, the worry lines in her face smoother but still present, even in sleep. He turned away from her, not wanting to be a creep, and gently placed his note on the bedside table where he knew she’d find it.

 

He swallowed hard, and left the cell, as quietly as he arrived. The note on the table, in his sloppy scrawl, held two words:

  
_ Keep it _ . 


	3. Chapter 3

“You need to be sure.”

 

Daryl squinteded up from the bolt he was making, and put up his hand to block the sun. He saw Carol hovering over him with her arms crossed and her jaw set.

 

“Come over this way, sun's in my eyes,” he mumbled at her. 

 

She huffed out a sigh and changed positions so that Daryl could see her properly. She repeated, “You need to be sure.”

 

“I know,” Daryl said, turning back to his bolt. “I am.”

 

Carol didn't say anything. After the silence dragged on too long, Daryl looked back up at her to find her regarding him with a deep crease between her brows.

 

“What?” he asked.

 

“Yesterday you were throwing up in the gardens you were so scared, and today you've hopped aboard the daddy train? Why the sudden change?”

 

Why the sudden change, indeed? Daryl wasn't sure how to explain it. He was still scared—shitless! in fact—but he had woken up that morning (and the fact that there had been sleep to wake up from was monumental) not regretting the note he'd left on Carol's bedside table. He trusted his instincts more often than not, and figured his intuition would tell him if he had made the completely wrong decision.

 

“Hung out with Asskicker,” he told her with a shrug. “I figure she was worth it, so why wouldn't our kid be?” 

 

He said it with a confidence he didn’t necessarily feel, because Carol needed him to be confident. Even still, the phrase ‘our kid’ made his heart pick up speed. They were two words that held so many implications:

 

  1. He had been irresponsible enough to get a woman pregnant—a level of stupidity he was still having trouble grasping the magnitude of.
  2. There was going to be a kid; a baby, in fact, that, if all went according to plan, he was going to have to raise into an adult.
  3. The word ‘our’ meant that number two on the list was going to be done with another person. In this case, that other person was Carol, whom he never did get a chance to work out his tangle of complicated feelings for, because when he tried to talk to her about them, she had dropped the bombshell about list item number one. 



 

No, he wasn’t confident, but he was going to fake it until he made it, for his sake, her sake, and the sake of the kid.

 

Carol appeared to be at a loss. She opened and closed her mouth several times, trying to start a sentence but it not finding the words. Finally, she said, “That’s your decision, then? You want this?”

 

“Yeah,” Daryl told the bolt in his hands. Then, feeling cowardly, forced himself to look her in the eye as he asked, “Do you?”

 

She faltered again; kicked the dirt with her boot. 

 

“If you’re sure, then I trust you,” she said, and immediately Daryl was consumed with doubt, because that was an awful lot of trust to put on his decision, but she must have read the fear on him, because she added, “And I don’t mean sure, as in you’re sure everything will be perfect, and nothing can go wrong. What I mean is, if you’re sure this is the road you want to take, knowing that maybe there will be repercussions, and maybe things won’t be easy... _ then _ I trust you, and I’m with you, and we can do this.” 

 

Daryl couldn’t sum it up any better than that, so he just gave her a nod. She nodded back. They then stared at each other in a tense and awkward silence.

 

“Now what?” Daryl finally asked. It was like they’d just made a spit-shake business transaction, except instead of making a merger, they were making a baby, and it hit Daryl all at once, the realization that he had no idea what that entailed. From pregnancy, to birth, to child rearing, he was completely and utterly clueless.

 

Carol shrugged, her arms still crossed. “Nothing right now,” she said.

 

“Yeah, but…” he trailed off and then gestured at her midsection inelegantly. “You’re pregnant,” he finished lamely. He saw Carol fight back a small smile.

 

“Yes, that’s why we’re having this conversation,” she said, and Daryl ignored the heat rising in his cheeks. He set down the bolt and got to his feet, dusting off the seat of his pants. He mirrored her cross-armed position.

 

“What do you need? To keep you healthy, I mean?” He could hear the desperation in his own voice, so he knew she heard it too.

 

“I’m fine, Daryl,” she said. Daryl narrowed his eyes at her and she sighed. “It’s still early. We’ll just keep it to ourselves for now. I don’t want people knowing before they have to.”

 

If the others knew, then they could help Daryl keep her safe, but Daryl knew that she would never go for that reasoning. She would argue that she could keep  _ herself _ safe, thanks very much, and Daryl wouldn’t dispute that, but she could be so headstrong sometimes, he worried she’d let her pride get the best of her.

 

Perhaps a conversation for another day, he decided.

 

“Okay,” he said, wracking his brain for any miniscule amount of information on pregnancy he had stored in there. “Are you eating enough? You have to eat more, right?” 

 

Carol crinkled her nose and shook her head. “Don’t talk about food,” she said. “I can barely keep just water down. Working in the kitchens is killing me. Not literally,” she added, when she saw Daryl’s face.

 

“When was the last time you ate?” 

 

“And kept it down? I ate a piece of jerky last night, and choked down half a bowl of oatmeal earlier this morning. We’ll see how that goes.” 

 

Nope, thought Daryl, that wouldn’t do.

 

“How often you throwin’ up?” 

 

Carol shrugged with an eye roll. “Few times a day? I don’t know, it’s fine Daryl, it was like this with my other pregnancies too. The first couple months are hell, but eventually it evens out.”

 

“You’ll get dehydrated.”

 

“I’m  _ fine _ .”

 

However protective Daryl may have felt over Carol before this whole debacle, it was tenfold now. He fought the urge to lead her to her cell, lay her down in bed, and force feed her water and saltine crackers. 

 

“What helped?” he asked. “Before, I mean, when you was sick? Anything?”

 

“Find me a Zofran,” Carol laughed humorlessly. At Daryl’s confused blink, she waved a hand. “It’s a medicine, don’t worry about it. I’ll get through it, I promise.”

 

“You gotta eat, though.”

 

“Oh my God,” Carol said, throwing her hands up in defeat. “I’m done with this conversation right now. I am going to the kitchens to help with lunch. Come find me after your watch shift tonight, and we’ll talk more, alright?”

 

She didn’t wait for his response. She turned on her heel and stalked away towards the prison. Daryl frowned at her back. He was the most clueless man on the planet, trying to help the most stubborn woman in existence.

 

If everything worked out the way he hoped, it was gonna be one interesting mix of genes that kid was gonna have. That, if nothing else, was certain.

 

—-

 

“Daryl, I’m not eating that,” Carol said the minute Daryl walked into her cell. He was carrying a tray holding a bowl of plain rice and a steaming mug.

 

“Did’ya eat supper?” he asked, already knowing the answer as he set the tray down and picked up the mug. 

 

“No, but that’s because I couldn’t keep down lunch and I didn’t want to waste the food, and there's no sense in wasting it now,” said Carol.

 

“Mm,” Daryl grunted. He held the mug out to her, and she pressed her lips into a thin line and eyed it with disdain.

 

“No,” she said.

 

“It’s to settle your stomach,” Daryl said. At her narrowed eyes, he explained, “It’s ginger mint tea. Found some pickled ginger in the pantry, and picked some mint when I was hunting. It works better with fresh ginger root, but this’ll do the job. My mom used to make it for us when we got sick as kids.” He huffed a small laugh, and added, “And then when we was older, Merle’d make it for hangovers.” 

 

It was rare that he offered insight into his own past, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't using it now to his advantage, knowing Carol was more likely to listen if he peppered his request with personal information. He wasn’t disappointed. Very tentatively, Carol reached out and took the mug from Daryl. She sniffed it and took a tiny sip. She licked her bottom lip, looking thoughtful, as though trying to decide if she was going to be able to stomach it or not.

 

“You drink that slow enough and it should help the nausea. Then try and eat some of the rice. I’d prefer it if you’d let me make you some bone broth, ‘cause there’s more nutrients, but it’s best not to jump right into that if you really ain’t keepin’ anything down.”

 

Carol blinked at him. “Thank you,” she said, a bit of surprise in her tone. Daryl shrugged.

 

“Ain’t nothin’. Just wanna make sure you’re eating, is all. And don’t want you feelin’ like shit neither.” 

 

She regarded him carefully. “You don’t happen to know,” she asked between another small sip, “why I was suddenly taken off kitchen duty and put back on laundry?”

 

Daryl bowed his head and coughed a little. “I may of, uh, pitched a fit to the lady workin’ laundry.” He glanced back up at her with a shy smile. “Told her she was using way too much starch on the clothes, and that I was gonna complain to Hershel if they didn’t get the old head wash lady back. It just so happens that was you.” 

 

Carol’s expression did a strange competition between anger and amusement, eventually culminating in a smile with an eye roll. “You couldn’t care less about how your clothes are washed,” she said.

 

“I don’t even know what the starch does,” he said, and the earned him a genuine laugh.

 

“Thank you,” she said, more sincerely this time. “You didn’t need to do that.” 

 

“I can’t go through it for you, but I wanna help where I can.” He pulled out a chair by her table and sat on it backwards. “Let me?”

 

“Yeah,” Carol said softly. “I’ll let you.” 

 

Daryl watched her drink her tea for a while. He had a question, but was too embarrassed to ask it. Carol, who knew him so well, eventually said,

 

“What is it?”

 

Daryl furrowed his brow, a blush blooming on his cheeks. “How big is she?” he mumbled. 

 

“Hm?” 

 

He nodded towards Carol's stomach. “How big is she?” he repeated, a little better articulated but not any less self-conscious. Carol gave a bemused smile.   
  


“She?” 

 

Oh. Daryl had said that without thinking, but now that he considered it, he couldn’t see how the kid could be anything but a girl. Not because he’d be unhappy with a boy; his intuition just said flat out, “It’s a girl,” and his intuition was not often wrong.

 

“Yeah,” he said simply.

 

“You know there’s an equal chance that it could be a boy?”

 

“I know, but she ain’t,” he said. It didn’t make any sense, and he believed it one hundred percent. Carol twisted her mouth.

 

“So what if you’re wrong, and it  _ is _ a boy?”

 

“Doesn’t make no difference to me,” he said, because it didn’t. “I’d be surprised, but it’d be fine.” 

 

“But you think it’s a girl?”

 

“I know it is,” he said. Carol laughed.

 

“I feel like I have to think it’s a boy now, just because you’re so confident.” 

 

Daryl thought that was silly, but he just shrugged. “Think what you gotta think.” 

 

Carol shook her head, eyeing him fondly. He didn’t know what he had done to warrant the affection she was giving him, but he welcomed it all the same. “In answer to your question,” she said. “ _ He’s _ tiny. I’d say about the size of a kidney bean.” She used her index finger and thumb to demonstrate.

 

How the fuck was a kidney bean supposed to turn into a full-grown baby? 

 

“Does she got, like, a brain and stuff?”

 

“Getting there. He should have a heartbeat, at least, but I’m not sure on the other specifics. You’re gonna make me look like a fool, asking these questions. It’s been so long I don’t even remember everything.” 

 

“Know more than me,” Daryl admitted, chewing on a fingernail.

 

“Don’t feel bad, you’ve never had reason to know.”

 

That was true, but he did now. He couldn’t rely on her to give him all the answers. She had enough to worry about without him playing twenty questions with her. He resolved, right then and there, to find at least some of the information on his own. 

 

“Though something you should probably know,” Carol said slowly. “Is that for the next few weeks, there's a higher chance for miscarriage. That's part of why I don't want to say anything; don't wanna get everyone riled up over nothing.”

 

Daryl was struck by a peculiar feeling, and it took him a moment to sort it out. He was surprised to find that it was mild panic. Panic over what, exactly? That took a little bit more sleuthing.

 

Oh, he thought, as the realization hit him.

 

_ He didn't want her to miscarry _ . 

 

He didn't want it for the obvious reasons, of course, didn't want her to have to go through the trauma of it nor have to deal with the physical ramifications he only knew so much about, but that wasn't all. No, there was a small, but distinct part of him that didn't want her to miscarry because he didn't want to lose the baby.

 

And here he'd been thinking he had made a coin toss decision that could have gone either way. But if that were the case, then a miscarriage would just be nature deciding, clearing them both of any responsibility, letting them wash their hands clean of the whole ordeal. Panic over losing the baby was a whole new implication, and possibly the scariest one yet:

 

It implied that he genuinely  _ wanted _ the baby.

 

The day Sophia went missing was the first day in his entire life where he felt he had a purpose for something. And as terrible as a missing child was, the feeling of having a reason for living beyond just simple survival had been addictive. When Sophia emerged with glossed over eyes and a bite wound on her neck, Daryl had mourned his sense of purpose almost as much as he had mourned the girl.

 

But through the ordeal, he had gained Carol. He did not want to understate the tragedy of Sophia's death, but if anything good was to come of it, maybe bringing him and Carol together had been it.

 

Maybe this baby would be it.

 

Maybe this baby would once again give him that addictive sense of purpose.

 

He looked at Carol now,  _ really _ looked, as he had done that night in the bookstore. It seemed inappropriate to relish her beauty here in her cell. The bookstore had been almost a liminal space; a place where normal boundaries did not apply, and he had been free to think of her as pretty and let himself go inside her, because the area around them allowed it.

 

Here though? Here, she was exhausted and dehydrated, sipping tea to soothe the stomach ache caused by what they'd taken home with them. The bookstore, while liminal, was not without consequence. For the first time since that night, Daryl allowed himself to wonder if one of those consequences was the revelation that maybe the reason he had such difficulty defining what Carol was to him, was because he was letting fear keep him from seeing it. Maybe one of the consequences was the persistent thought in the back of his head he kept trying to repress, telling him that what she was to him was clear as day.

 

“Daryl?” she asked. He gave himself a shake, letting the mess of thoughts tumble out of his head. What he did or didn't feel for her, what he wanted or didn't want from her, was neither here nor there. Now was not the time to dwell on something foolish.

 

_ She's having your baby _ , a voice in his mind reminded him.

 

_ Because she was vulnerable, and you were the closest warm body, and you were too stupid to pull out _ , claimed another one.

 

“What causes that? Miscarriages, I mean?” Daryl asked, pointedly ignoring the running dialogue in his subconscious.

 

“Stress. Physical trauma. My age will play a factor, I suppose. But honestly, sometimes it's just nothing at all,” Carol said with a shrug. “Beyond being a bit more cautious than usual, there's not much we can do but wait and see.”

 

She sounded nonchalant, like it would be fine either way, and maybe to her it would be. Hell, it might even be preferable, looking at it from her point of view. If it happened that way, then she'd never have to be known as the woman who let herself get knocked up by Daryl Dixon. Daryl found that he couldn't blame her, but then, she said she was okay with keeping it. Surely that meant that somewhere deep inside she wanted the baby too? Even if it was his?

 

“Will you promise to be careful?” he asked her. She opened her mouth, probably to protest, but Daryl cut her off. “I ain’t asking you to stay in bed all day, and nobody needs to know, but just, don't work yourself too hard, okay? Be smart. If we're gonna commit to this, then, I dunno, let's fucking commit.”

 

Carol knitted her brows together. “You say that like I’m gonna go out of my way to put me and this baby in jeopardy. I didn't say that about the miscarriages to scare you, Daryl, I just wanted you to know the risks. I’m gonna take care of myself.” She smiled softly at him and added, “I gotta, because if I don't, I know you'll be riding my ass in a second.”

 

“Damn straight,” he muttered, the tension in his shoulders loosening at little. Carol yawned then, wide and long, and she rubbed her eyes with the base of her palms. “Tired?” he asked her.

 

“Exhausted,” she corrected. “That was my first clue that I was pregnant, you know? Happened just the same with my other pregnancies—I’d get out of bed in the mornings and never fully wake up. It's like I could sleep standing up if I closed my eyes too long.”

 

“Don't blame you,” Daryl said shyly. “It can't be easy. It's like your body's workin’ 24/7. Even when you ain't doin’ nothin’, you're still doin’ somethin’.”

 

Carol let out a small breath of laughter. “I like that. Makes me sound less lazy that way.”

 

“Nah, you sure as hell ain't lazy. The opposite. You drink the rest of your tea, promise me you'll try to swallow down some of that rice, and I’ll let you be to get some sleep.”

 

“Okay,” she said with a soft smile. Daryl was struck by how much he liked her smile, and then was subsequently struck by how much he didn't want to be thinking things like that. He cleared his throat, got to his feet, and gave her a brief squeeze on the shoulder.

 

“You come get me if you need me. More tea, something doesn't feel right, anything, alright?”

 

She nodded. “Thank you.”

 

“G’night,” he said, and showed himself out, trying and failing to leave his tangle of thoughts behind.


	4. Chapter 4

The following few weeks passed by with Carol saying next to nothing about the baby, and Daryl following her lead, because what else was he supposed to do?

 

He brought her tea every night, made sure she ate the broth he'd made from the bones of a buck he'd taken down, and he managed to snag a bottle of prenatal vitamins from a house he searched on a short run. But all of these things were done in silence; no discussion of their purpose.

 

The changes to her body were imperceptible to the others, but he wasn't them. If the group ever caught on to the things Daryl knew, just from observation alone, he'd never be rid of them trying to harass him for gossip.

 

For example, here was the list of the things he'd learned just that day:

 

  * The new guy, Bob, had been jonesing for a drink since he got to the prison, but was finally past the worst of his withdrawal because his aim was suddenly better when he did target practice—his hands had stopped shaking.
  * Beth kept smiling to herself, and was making eyes with that boy Zach whenever they were near each other, so clearly they were involved.
  * Carl was watching the people taking out walkers at the fence with longing, whenever Rick wasn't looking. He wasn't as reformed as his dad had hoped.



 

Lucky for everyone, Daryl could keep a secret, even big ones. Daryl had known Lori was pregnant before anyone had said a word about it. He had seen it in her the same way he saw it now in Carol.

 

The changes were subtle, but they were there. Her cheeks were beginning to get rounder, her skin shinier, and her breasts were more prominent in her shirts, even under layers as winter drew closer. When he handed her the nightly cup of tea, her fingernails appeared less brittle, and her hair, a little healthier. It wasn't even sexual, the things he saw, it was just what he did. He was a hunter, a tracker—he was trained to notice what others missed.

 

Not everything he saw was objective, however. Daryl, who was adept at observing impartially, found that he was not quite able to do so when Carol was involved. 

 

There was a phrase he’d heard before, one he’d given approximately zero thought to, which was that pregnant women glowed; were somehow more beautiful. Daryl did not often concern himself with dull, cliché turns of phrase such as that, but he couldn’t think of a better explanation as to why he was suddenly incapable of keeping his eyes off of Carol. 

 

It was getting out of hand. 

 

On more than one occasion he’d caught himself staring at her lips when she sipped tea out of her mug, trying and failing to repress the memory of her pressing them against his on that bookstore floor. The other day he’d gotten his wrist grabbed by a walker smashed in the fence wire, because he’d seen her out of the corner of his eye making polite conversation with Maggie in the sunlight, and he’d been distracted thinking the sun was like the candle flame that had illuminated her soft face that night. 

 

Daryl had never had a girlfriend before.

 

Actually, that wasn't true. In the second grade, Daryl let Millie Samson have his turn on the swings, so she asked him if he'd be her boyfriend, and let him hold her hand. But the next day, the other kids taunted Millie mercilessly for having a crush on a Dixon, and so Millie left him for Byron Washington—a boy who was exceptionally tall for his age and often asked Daryl if he knew what soap was—and that was that for Daryl's love life.

 

Sure, he'd put his dick in a few women, and even had had minor crushes on some here and there, but he never attempted to make it 'something more’. 'Something more’ was an uncomfortable and illusive concept he felt he was better off avoiding, and up until then, that had worked out for him just fine.

 

But now he wasn't so sure.

 

He tried to tell himself it was because she was pregnant with his baby—that there was some biological need for him to be intimately involved with the mother of his child—but that didn't account for everything. It didn't account for the knot in his stomach he'd had the first few weeks after the bookstore, before he knew anything about her pregnancy, and it certainly didn't account for why he agreed to sleep with her in the first place.

 

Not that it mattered. Not that fussing over it was going to lead to anything. He was not about to go up to the woman whose life he'd accidentally made exponentially more complicated, and then make it even more so by dumping his feelings all over her. Besides, Daryl knew in his heart of hearts it was just a pipe dream that she'd even reciprocate them in the first place.

 

No, he decided resolutely, it was better if he dealt with his potentially romantic thoughts about Carol the way he dealt with any uncomfortable emotion: Putting them in a small, metaphorical box, and then crushing said box down into dust.

 

Problem solved.

 

And so, with his box of emotion dust stored securely away, Daryl sought out Carol that afternoon, per request, just to spend some time together. Just as friends. Totally normal.

 

Carol was in her cell, knees drawn to her chest on her bed, leafing through some paperback novel, a look of disinterest on her face. Daryl knocked lightly on the wall to get her attention. She lifted her head and gave him a wide smile and a pleasant greeting, which made Daryl feel nothing out of the ordinary because his feelings were in a crushed metaphorical box. Of course.

 

He took a seat at her desk chair, sitting on it backwards as usual. It was rare that the two of them both had free time during the day. Most of their time spent together lately had amounted to Daryl forcing her to eat something, before they both passed out in their respective cells. Carol had suggested, and Daryl had (platonically) agreed, that it would be nice to see each other in the daytime.

 

“How’re you doing?” Daryl asked her, giving her a quick once over. She wasn't flushed like she usually was if she'd been vomiting a lot during the day. She shrugged one shoulder.

 

“Fine,” she said. “Exhausted. Bloated.”

 

“Stomach?”

 

“Behaving itself for now.”

 

Daryl nodded. He wanted to pry further, but he was worried she'd pull away if he asked any questions explicitly about the pregnancy, since she hadn't seemed interested in talking about it thus far. 

 

So Daryl was surprised when the next thing out of Carol's mouth was, “I’m starting to not be able to fit into my pants.”

 

A harmless statement, but the only symptoms they'd broached together had been the morning sickness and occasional complaints of fatigue. Carol bringing up her growing waistband during their first real private conversation in weeks seemed like a hesitant invitation. Daryl needed to tread lightly. He asked, as innocently as he could,

 

“You starting to show at all?”

 

Carol hummed thoughtfully. “I don't think so,” she said. “I can tell the difference, but I look at myself more than anyone. I doubt anyone else would be able to see it, even if I was stark naked.” She twisted her mouth and regarded Daryl. She then tossed her book to the end of the bed and swung her legs over onto the ground. She stood and faced Daryl sideways, pulling her shirt up to her bra-line. “Can you tell?” she asked.

 

Daryl blinked a few times, surprised at her forwardness. He examined her midsection, her stomach a creamy white, dotted with a few large freckles. The fly of her pants was showing a bit of strain against her belly, and there was just the slightest bit of a pooch visible. If he wasn't looking right at it, and didn't know any better, he would have just assumed she'd had a large meal.

 

“Barely,” he said, looking away from her stomach and meeting her eye. She shrugged again, letting her shirt fall back down and then straightening it out.

 

“It's early yet. Give it a couple more weeks, though, and there won't be any doubt. It was like that with my other pregnancies, too. It took forever to start showing, and then overnight it was like I'd swallowed a beach ball.” She sat back down on the edge of the bed, her hands resting on her thighs. “I'll tell you what though?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“My boobs feel gigantic, and they hurt like a mother.”

 

Daryl very pointedly kept his eyes on Carol's. 

She laughed.

 

“Such a southern gentleman, but it's okay. I know you've noticed, you notice everything.”

 

Daryl figured the intense reddening of his cheeks was enough of a giveaway, that he felt no need to respond. He wanted to tell her he didn't notice on  _ purpose _ , but he had a suspicion that saying so would just make her laugh even harder.

 

“When are you going to let the others know?” he asked, deflecting. He wished he hadn't, because Carol's face fell at the question.

 

“I don't know,” she said, not sharply but only just. “Not yet.”

 

“'S’fine,” Daryl said quickly, backtracking. There was an awkward pause. Carol clicked her tongue a few times and then stood up again abruptly.

 

“I need to pee,” she announced. “Don't look like that,” she added when she saw his face. “You didn't do anything wrong, I just can't stop peeing. Though, I suppose you're partially to blame for that.” She pointed at her not-quite-visible belly and gave him a significant look. She was teasing, but Daryl fought back the impulse to apologise anyway as she headed towards the bathrooms.

 

Daryl drummed his fingers on the back of his chair. He eyed a stack of books on Carol's desk with mild interest. Most were run-of-the-mill harlequin romance books, with a handful of actual novels thrown in. He thumbed through a couple before tossing them aside. He noticed one book tucked behind the others, partially hidden from view. He reached over and pulled it out. On the cover, in big, white, block letters, it read,  _ PREGNANCY AND YOUR BODY _ .

 

It appeared to be a decade old at least, with water damaged pages and a mothball smell. Daryl flipped it open to a random passage, and saw the words, “fourth degree perineal lacerations,” with a helpful diagram and a painfully explicit picture below it. Daryl promptly closed the book.

 

“Find anything interesting in there?” Carol asked, startling him. He sat the book down with a thud and pushed his hair from his face sheepishly. He was about to apologise for snooping when he noticed that Carol was a bit pale, and she had slight worry lines around her mouth.

 

“What's wrong?” he asked immediately. Carol blinked in surprise.

 

“Nothing?” she said, but Daryl wasn't convinced. He saw the way she was cracking her knuckles absentmindedly. 

 

“Somethin’,” he insisted. Carol stared at him for several beats before conceding defeat with a sigh.

 

“You really do notice everything, it's a nuisance,” she told him in an attempt to lighten the mood, but his hackles remained raised. She deflated. “It's truly probably nothing,” she said.

 

“What’s probably nothin’?”

 

“I had some spotting earlier, that's pretty normal, but it's a little heavier now is all.”

 

“Spotting? You mean like bleeding?” Daryl asked, alarmed.

 

“No, I mean like spotting. Bleeding would be more cause for alarm. It's not  _ heavy _ spotting, just  _ heavier _ , and I get nervous, that's all.”

 

“We should tell Dr. S,” Daryl said immediately, moving to stand, as though he was going to drag her off to the infirmary right then and there; as though he had no idea who he was dealing with.

 

“No,” Carol said, shortly and predictably, pushing Daryl by the shoulder so he would sit back down. 

 

“But—” Daryl started, butt still halfway out of his chair, but she cut him off.

 

“No, Daryl, I don't want other people knowing yet.”

 

“He ain't other people, though, he's the  _ doctor _ .”

 

“And what exactly is he going to do, Daryl? He's not an obstetrician, and he doesn't have anything for prenatal care that I don't have right here in my cell. I know how to be pregnant, I've done it before, certainly more times than Dr. S, so there's nothing he can say to me that I don't already know. If I start gushing blood I'll go see him, but until then, I want to be pregnant in peace, just for a little while longer.”

 

Daryl did not like that, not one bit. But he also knew this was not an argument he was going to win. He let himself plop back onto the seat of the chair with a defeated sigh.

 

“Sit down, at least,” he told her. “Even better, lay down, get some rest, and don't do no more work today.”

 

“Daryl, I told you, it's probably normal.”

 

“Yeah, and what if it ain't?” he asked, surprised that it came out sharper than he intended. Carol must have been surprised too, because she paused, and then actually went over and sat down.

 

“I told you there's a possibility of miscarriage,” she reminded him softly. “Worrying about that isn't gonna change it.” Daryl grunted his response, and Carol set her jaw. “Don't do that,” she said. “Talk to me.”

 

“'Nd say what?”

 

“Whatever's on your mind.”

 

Daryl frowned at his fingernails he was suddenly very engrossed in. He shrugged. “Dunno,” he mumbled. “Just want you to be okay. The both of you.”

 

Carol didn't say anything right away. Eventually she said, “I want that, too. Do you think I don't?”

 

Daryl didn't think he should answer that honestly. He still wasn't convinced she wasn't just going through with this to humor him; just going through the motions while secretly regretting it. Her radio silence on any sort of baby talk didn't do much to convince him otherwise. Meanwhile, he had only gotten more attached to the idea of having a kid, and his fear at losing that felt almost shameful in the face of Carol's apparent indifference.

 

“I know you do, too,” he lied, and if Carol caught it, she didn't call him out on it. 

 

“I'll do what I can to keep us both healthy. I already promised that to you.”

 

“Yeah,” Daryl said.

 

There wasn't much else he could do but take her at her word.

 

—-

 

Five days later, she broke her word, and it was a mess.

 

It all started with an emergency council meeting being called. Everyone in the group not out on run assignments trickled in from their various posts, crowding around a large meeting table with Rick at the head, and Hershel beside him.

 

Daryl entered the room an extra level above his usual amount of filthy, having just been lugging rotting walker corpses into the back of a pickup truck for Tyrese to drive to the burn pile. Carol entered a minute or so later, coming in from her afternoon reading with the kids. She went to sit by Daryl, but hesitated and then cast him an apologetic look.

 

“The smell,” she muttered to him, glancing over at the others, who were all too caught up in idle chit chat to notice anything amiss. “The walker smell, I can't…” She shook her head.

 

“‘S’okay,” Daryl muttered back to her as she gave him a sheepish grin and went to go sit beside Beth. 

 

That should have been Daryl's first clue that the universe was not playing in his favor that day, but instead he just curled into himself a little, self-conscious for perhaps the first time in who knew how long about the state of his bodily hygiene. He knew it wasn't his fault—he’d noticed her heightened sense of smell ever since she complained to him about Judith's soiled diaper when they were over ten feet away from her—and he  _ was _ covered in guts, and that wasn't particularly appealing, even with a normal sense of smell. Still, it was hard not to take that as a minor rejection.

 

Hershel got the attention of the room by loudly clearing his throat. The idle chatter tapered off as everyone turned to hear what the meaning of the abrupt meeting was.

 

“We've got a slight problem,” Rick spoke up. Rick's leadership had been waning lately, ever since he'd decided he'd rather carry a trowel than a gun, but he still managed to command the room with his voice, the group still respectful towards him, simply out of instinct if nothing else.

 

He continued, “We've got a couple of problems, actually. The first one is that we're running low on water. The waterline has clogged up twice in the past week, and one of the newer residents let me know it's because the pond it's drawing from is gettin’ down to dregs. We haven't had a good rain since that storm that rolled through here a couple months ago.”

 

Daryl shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He glanced over at Carol who smirked at him, and he hoped no one noticed the blush he could feel blooming on his cheeks.

 

“We've got enough to get us through for a little while yet, but if we don't get any precipitation we're gonna be in for a world of hurt. It's best if we start looking for alternatives now, so we don't have to get to that point. Especially with the growing numbers inside the prison.

 

“Now, usually water would take priority, but like I said, we got a couple problems, and the other one is that the north fence is one big shove away from coming down, and that's a whole lot of walkers on our property if that were to happen.

 

“Both big issues, both need to be dealt with asap. Here's what we need to do. I need to gather the heavy lifters of the group to help reinforce that fence. Daryl, that's you, Glenn, Tyrese, and why don't you get and Bob in the mix. I’ll lend a hand myself.”

 

“I wouldn't really call myself a heavy lifter,” Glenn objected. “Not like Mr. Gun Show over here, anyway.” He nodded towards Daryl, and snickers ran through the room as Daryl scowled. “Shouldn't I be on run duty?”

 

“Nah, I need all hands on deck for this one. Gonna have to face it, kid,” Rick said to Glenn. “You're not that scrawny pizza boy anymore.”

 

Glenn mumbled something to the effect of, “I never said I was  _ scrawny _ ,” but everyone ignored him.

 

“While we're fixing the fence, I was thinking that Maggie, since Glenn is with us, why don't you and Carol could go on a run to see if you can find water. Take a truck, go fill up jugs at a lake, see if you can find any bottled water, anything you think will help.”

 

“You want  _ me _ to go?” asked Carol, just as Daryl said, “Carol can't go on a run.” Carol shot him a stern look, her lips a thin line.

 

“Michonne is still out on her run, and Sasha just got back from one. Maggie's got experience, she knows the safest places, and it's not like you've never gone out before,” Rick said to Carol, shooting a bemused look between her and Daryl. “You're a good shot, you'll be fine.”

 

Daryl waited for Carol to object. He waited for her to use her quick wit to come up with some excuse for why she couldn't go. He waited for her to refuse.

 

“... Okay,” she said, and Daryl’s stomach fell to his ass.

 

“ _ Carol _ ,” he said sharply. 

 

“It'll be okay, Daryl,” Carol said, her face turning red. “It's not a difficult run.” Daryl gawked at her as the others around them tried to make heads or tails over the exchange.

 

“Am I missing something…?” Rick asked.

 

“No,” Carol insisted to him.

 

“Yes,” Daryl insisted right back. He rounded once again on Carol. “You know you can't.”

 

“Daryl, you're overreacting.”

 

He regarded her for a long moment. He saw the steel in her eye. She was determined, and he understood, he did, she didn't want them to doubt her abilities, and she certainly didn't want to out her secret, but she was going to put herself and the baby at risk in the process, and Daryl couldn't have that.

 

“'M sorry,” Daryl told her, and she shook her head, reading him just as easily as he read her, and knowing what he was about to do.

 

“Daryl, don't,” but Daryl was already facing Rick.

 

“She can't go,” he told him. “She's pregnant.”

 

The silence that followed was deafening. For several seconds, no one spoke, moved, or even breathed. Then came the screeching of Carol's chair scraping on the concrete floor. She fled the room, slamming the door behind her, leaving Daryl with a table full of shocked and silent questions being aimed at him in the faces of all of his friends.

 

“Sasha can handle going back out,” Daryl told Rick, nodding towards Sasha. “She can go with Maggie.”

 

Rick seemed at a loss. Everybody did. He said, “That okay with you, Sasha?” and when she nodded silently, eyes wide, that was good enough for Daryl.

 

He got to his feet as well. He was not about to sit around and indulge everybody's curiosity while Carol was off somewhere fuming at him. He didn't bother with an explanation or a goodbye as he showed himself to the door Carol had stormed out of just moments prior.

 

He was halfway to her cell when he remembered he was still covered in walker innards. It seemed counterintuitive to go take a shower after a meeting about a water shortage, but he 1. figured he took fewer showers than everyone else and had banked the time, and 2. was not about to worsen the situation with Carol by making her get sick on herself because he smelled like a rotting corpse. Besides, they both could use the time to cool off before Daryl went confronting her.

 

Because, Daryl realized as a cold spray hit his filthy skin, he was angry. Actually angry, and not angry like he was a lot of the time, when he was too emotionally tone-deaf to know what he was actually feeling. He was genuinely  _ mad _ at Carol.

 

She had made him a promise, hadn't she? And would going on a run mean certain peril for her or the baby? No, but the promise had been that she was going to do everything in her power to keep the two of them safe, and allowing herself to go on a run with someone who didn't even know her condition? That was far from her best effort.

 

Was the idea of others knowing she was pregnant with Daryl's child really so appalling that she'd rather put herself in danger than tell the truth? That didn't seem fair. Daryl didn't care if it was fair to him, but the kid didn't deserve it. The kid had enough working against her already, and didn't need to be seen as an embarrassment before she was even born, Dixon or no.

 

He threw on the cleanest clothes he had, which still somehow managed to be somewhat dirty, and combed his fingers through his wet hair. Satisfied that he smelled as bad as everything else, but not any worse, he finally sought out Carol in her cell.

 

She was sitting on the floor in a ball, arms wrapped around her legs, her forehead resting on her knees. She lifted her head when she heard Daryl enter. She was pale and tired, but she hadn't been crying, which seemed like a good sign.

 

Daryl intended to say something supportive, or something kind, but what came out of his mouth was, “I ain't sorry.” She blinked at him.

 

“What?” she asked.

 

“I ain't sorry. You promised you'd keep yourself safe, and you broke it. I didn't have another choice,” Daryl said, feeling uncomfortable towering over her as he spoke so harshly. He lowered himself to the floor to level them out. He sat across from her, one leg bent, one straight out. He added, “We don't gotta say the kid is mine. You can tell 'em it's, I dunno, some guy who came through and then got ate on a run. Tell 'em I’m just helping you as a friend. I don't care, so long as you keep yourself safe.”

 

Carol squinted at him as though he were some kind of bizarre animal she'd never seen before.

 

“What the hell are you talking about?” she asked.

 

“Look, I don't blame you, God knows what kind of shit they'd give you for screwing around with me, but, I dunno, we all knew Asskicker wasn't Rick’s and we all got over it. People like to run their mouths, but eventually they get bored. I’m sure they'll get over this too.”

 

“Oh my God,” Carol said, as realization dawned over her, her eyes going wide. “You think I didn't want to tell them because I was embarrassed that it's yours. Daryl. Have you thought that was the reason I've been keeping it from them  _ this whole time _ ?”

 

It was Daryl's turn to regard her like some incomprehensible cryptid.

 

“Is it not?” he asked. He felt a strange twinge in his gut that felt suspiciously like hope.

 

“Oh Daryl…” Carol said. She then startled the ever-loving-hell out of him by bursting into tears. She cleared the distance between them and wrapped him in a tight embrace. He sat frozen a moment, before moving his hands to pat her on the back, albeit no less confused, while she cried on his shoulder. 

 

“It's'okay,” he mumbled, not entirely sure what he was soothing her about. She let out a few more good sobs, before pulling away and wiping her runny nose with the back of her hand.

 

“I’m so sorry,” she said to him a watery voice. “All this time I've been so preoccupied with my own fears and worries, I didn't even realize you were sitting here thinking I was ashamed because of  _ you _ .”

 

“I told you I understand—”

 

“No,” Carol cut him off sharply, actually putting a hand over his mouth to shush him. “You don't understand. I  _ am _ embarrassed, but not of you. I’m embarrassed of myself. I'm embarrassed because I am going to be a burden on this group again, just when I finally started feeling like I belonged. And I’m  _ afraid _ , Daryl, I am so terrified about so many things that it's paralyzing, and the thought of telling the others just made it all feel so  _ real _ , and  _ scarier _ , and I wasn't ready for that.

 

“But do you know what the one thing is that has kept me sane these past few weeks?” she asked him gently. He shook his head the slightest bit. “Knowing that this baby is yours. That's the biggest comfort I’ve had, because I know that that means that I am going to be taken care of, and the baby is going to be safe, and the baby is going to be loved beyond belief. And I am so sorry if my stupid insecurities made you think for even a second that I regretted going through this with you. I told you before, and I meant it, if this baby was anyone else's, I wouldn't have kept it. I wouldn't have even considered it.”

 

Daryl sat in silence, taking in Carol's words, as she petted his damp hair absently. She murmured, “We communicate so effortlessly without having to say much, that sometimes I forget you're not wired to think you're worth something. I forget you actually need to hear it aloud, so let me remind you right now that you're worth it, and our baby is worth it, too.”

 

Daryl was overwhelmed. Carol's casual touch on his head felt like a hundred tiny electrical currents. He was struck by two conflicting impulses, the first being to run away, and the second being to kiss her hard on the mouth. He didn't do either of them. Instead, he took her wrist and gently moved her hand away from him, needing the space. She understood immediately, and even scooted back a bit—effortless communication, she wasn't wrong about that.

 

He wrestled with what to say. There were things he wanted to say, but didn't have the ability, let alone the confidence, to say, so he settled on what he  _ could _ offer her, and what he thought she needed to understand.

 

“I want her,” he said to Carol. “I didn't think I’d want her this much, but I do.”

 

“I’m afraid of having another baby after what happened on the farm,” Carol said, swiping away a stray tear. “I’m afraid it'll affect my ability to be a good mother. But I want him, too. Please don't doubt that.”

 

Daryl nodded. “I won't.”

 

He pulled her into another hug, even though the touch was still almost too much for him. She needed it. She hadn't said so, but he knew.

 

Effortless communication. Most of the time.


	5. Chapter 5

A bead of sweat rolled down from Daryl's forehead and dripped off the tip of his nose. His hair stuck to the moist skin of his face, and his lips tasted of salt. He lifted another heavy cinder block and stacked it on top of the others pushed against the northern fence. Walkers groaned and moaned at the smell of a fresh meal, and he ignored them entirely as he went to grab another block.

 

Beside him, Rick was hammering stakes into the ground to leverage the fence back into a standing position. Tyrese was doing the same thing down the line a ways. Bob and Glenn were driving knives into the walkers that had grown in number overnight. Hershel was standing back, keeping out an eye for any compromised spots they may be missing. An uneasy silence was hovering over them all like a storm cloud, and Daryl had just about had it.

 

“Alright,” he said after a good half hour of it. He dropped the cinder block in his hands and it fell to the dirt with a heavy thunk. The others turned to him in surprise. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Just say what you wanna say so we can get on with our damned lives.”

 

Daryl could almost hear the debate in their heads, as they tried to decide if they wanted to play dumb or not. He rolled his eyes. They all were wondering about it, even Bob, whom he knew news had spread to faster than a walker on a lame horse. “Get it over with,” he barked.

 

Glenn was the one to finally break the sickeningly polite silence.

 

“It's yours, right?”

 

“Yeah,” Daryl said, kicking at a weed poking up in between the dirt. “Next question?”

 

“We didn't even know you guys was together,” Tyrese said. Daryl grimaced.

 

“We ain't together. Next?”

 

“What do you mean you're not together?” Glenn asked.

 

“Just ain't like that,” Daryl said, regretting opening this line of questioning. 

 

“But,” Glenn continued to object, “how can it not be like that if she’s, you know…” He made a gesture of a large semicircle around his torso, miming a large pregnant belly. 

 

Daryl huffed a sigh. “You want me to turn this into a lesson on birds and bees or somethin’?” he asked, shooting Glenn the nastiest look he could muster. He got mild satisfaction when Glenn recoiled.

 

“I think what Glenn means,” Rick said reasonably from Daryl's other side, “is that neither you or Carol seems the type to…” He trailed off, searching for the right words.

 

“Hit it and quit it?” Glenn supplied helpfully. Daryl resisted the urge to throw a cinder block at him.

 

“Not the turn of phrase I would have went with, but sure,” Rick said.

 

“Look, I don't know what to tell y'all. Carol's pregnant, it's mine, it wasn't on purpose, and we ain't a couple. That's it, that's all there is.”

 

He didn't mean to sound so defensive, but  _ in  _ his defense, he didn't expect that spot to be quite so sore. But he wasn't about to explain to Glenn Rhee that he would gladly call himself Carol's, but he just recently stopped being convinced she wasn't utterly disgusted at the fact she was carrying part of him inside of her, so there was no way he was going to go all high school on her and ask if she'd like to go steady. His was forcing himself to focus on one thing and one thing only, and that was getting that baby out into the world, with both the kid and Carol in one piece by the end of it.

 

“Has she spoken with Dr. S yet?” Hershel piped up, thankfully driving the conversation away from its current location.

 

“Not yet,” Daryl said. “She was hell-bent on keeping it a secret until she couldn't no more, but now that the cat's out of the bag?” He shrugged. “She doesn't got the excuse no more.” 

 

In fact, he’d already had that conversation with her. She had continued to insist there wasn't anything the doctor could do for her, until Daryl brought up the complications she'd had with Sophia. He had found a medical book in the library the prison had amassed, and had looked up preeclampsia, after a brief struggle in trying to spell it, and once he had properly shit himself in terror, he’d told Carol in no uncertain terms that she needed to get regular blood pressure checks, and she couldn't come up with a rebuttal.

 

(Daryl had also found a withered copy of  _ What to Expect When You're Expecting _ , which was currently hanging out under his mattress. He hadn't been able to bring himself to open it yet, as the only two things he'd thus far read about pregnancy had been about a fatal blood pressure condition, and a diagram showing a vagina ripping all the way down to what the book labeled as ‘the sphincter.’ He was working up to it.)

 

“Well, don’t waste your energy being scared about the birth,” Hershel said, and Daryl wanted to point out that he had not said anything to indicate that he was, but Hershel just trucked on. “After all, there’s nothing you can do to stop it from happening. Besides, we’ve got a much better set up this time around.” He then, with realization of what had just come out of his mouth washing over him, turned to Rick, an apology already forming, but Rick waved it away.

 

“Hershel’s right,” he said. There wasn’t any resentment in his voice, but Daryl cast his eyes down anyway, and felt Glenn tense at his shoulder. Tyrese and Bob hadn’t been around long enough to understand. They knew about it, sure, but they didn’t  _ get it _ ; a whole winter spent fighting to find a safe place for Lori to deliver, only to lose her in a day of utter and pointless carnage. That was the day they’d lost T-Dog. The day they’d thought they’d lost Carol.

 

All in all, not one of their better afternoons. 

 

“I ain’t scared,” Daryl muttered, and to his surprise, Rick laughed.

 

“Yeah right,” he said. Daryl furrowed his brow at him, and Rick raised up a hand. “Let me rephrase. You may not be afraid of the birth, which, you know, I’m not sure I believe, but I know damn well you’re scared shitless about having a baby.”

 

“No I ain’t,” Daryl said defensively, and this time Hershel joined in with the laughter.

 

“Son,” he said kindly. “Either you’re scared out of your mind about becoming a first-time father, or you’re lying through your teeth.” 

 

Daryl set his jaw. They were both right, of course, but he wasn’t about to say so. “I ain’t,” he lied resolutely. 

 

“Hm,” Rick hummed wistfully. “The day Lori told me she was pregnant with Carl, I took her out to a nice supper to celebrate, her favorite place in town, even splurged on dessert, and then that night, after she’d fallen asleep, I puked my guts out in the kitchen sink; all that food gone to waste. I was terrified. I laid awake that whole night just thinkin’ to myself, ‘I can’t even remember to water the houseplants, how the hell am I supposed to keep a baby safe?’”

 

“You were a police officer,” Glenn pointed out. “Wasn’t keeping people safe, like, your job?”

 

“Didn’t matter,” Rick said, shaking his head with a smile. “I was confident in my abilities, knew I was a good cop, but I could have been the goddamned Chief of Police, and it wouldn’t have been enough. When it’s your own flesh and blood, a literal part of you, protective doesn’t even begin to cut it. There’s no word to describe the lengths you’d go to keep ‘em safe. And that alone is overwhelming.”

 

Daryl thought of his own daddy, not voluntarily of course, but the sting of his daddy’s belt against the skin of his back crossed his mind intrusively. Rick’s statement did not ring universally true to him.

 

“What about you, Hershel?” Glenn asked with a grin. “Did you throw up when Maggie’s mom told you she was pregnant?”

 

“Only once, but I’ll be perfectly honest with you, I wasn’t at my most sober at the time,” Hershel said, absently stroking the hair on his chin. “Got a little too lost in my own thoughts, was worried God had saddled me with more than I was going to be able to handle. The doubts you have about yourself are never stronger than right before you have a child.”

 

That statement, Daryl could at least attest to. He’d been trying to keep the thoughts in his repression box, but every so often they’d slip out and taunt him, telling him he was worthless, and trash, and had nothing to offer a child, how dare he bring one into the world? 

 

Daryl’s role models were two drunks and a meth head. His mother had abandoned him by going up in flame, his brother was never truly there in the first place, and his father was the worst of the lot, treating him like cattle, only worse, because at least cattle could serve a purpose, but what purpose could Daryl ever serve anyone? He could almost hear the disgust in his daddy’s voice, saying, “You think you got what it takes to be a father? I’m surprised you got a girl to stay in your presence long enough for you to stick it in her, but fuck if you shouldn’t have used a rubber. Ain’t no way no child raised by Daryl Dixon is gonna turn out any good.” 

 

“I’ll tell you what though, son,” Hershel said, and it took Daryl a moment to shake himself out of his own thoughts and realize Hershel was addressing him. “The moment you see that baby, it’s all worth it. It's like all at once, you suddenly forget why you were even doubtful in the first place.”

 

Rick nodded sagely.

 

“Watching Carl being born was scary as hell. Lori was there on the hospital bed in active labor, and she's in her element, you know, she's handling it with this grace that would have put grown men to shame, and I’m just sitting there next to her bed, damn near hyperventilating just at the thought of what she's gonna go through. It's a wonder she didn't kick me out of the room.

 

“And when she ended up having to have a C-section, I could tell she was scared. She'd had this whole plan of a natural delivery, but when the doctor told her the baby's heart rate was dropping, she just swallowed that fear right down, and told them to do what they had to do. And I don't know what y’all know about C-sections, but they put up this divider so that the mother doesn't have to watch what's going on on the other side, but I could see everything, and during it I just kept thinkin’, 'man, there's no way, just no way, having a baby can be worth all this pain, it's just so much trouble. How can birth be this  _ hard _ ?’

 

“And see, Lori already knew. She'd had Carl inside her for nine months, and she knew him already, and knew that he was going to be worth everything she'd gone through, but it wasn't until they got him out of there, and he let out that first cry, did I finally  _ get _ it. It was instant love. Immediate. We both would have done it all again; would have done more. It's how I know she didn't die with any regrets. You just truly don't know how much something can be worth until you have children. It changes your view on everything.”

 

Hershel was humming in affirmation at Rick's monologue. The others were soaking it in. Daryl fought back the urge to say, 'Hey, thanks Rick, but I very pointedly Did Not Ask for your advice,’ because as wise as it may have sounded, Hershel and Rick's wistful remembrance of their early days of fatherhood only proved to scare Daryl even more.

 

Loving seemed to come so easy to them, and the others acted like it was the most obvious thing in the world, but what if Daryl couldn't do it? What if he didn't have the capacity to love the kid the way she deserved to be loved? He knew he was growing attached to her—knew that he felt a surge of protectiveness every time he looked at Carol's belly—but he didn't know how to express that. He didn't know how to cradle and comfort and give long-winded monologues. And he didn't know if it was something he could be taught, or if it was just something he was missing, and he'd never be good enough for what his baby needed. God knew he wanted to be, but what if he couldn't?

 

“How's Carol doing?” Bob asked after everyone had a good long minute to consider Rick's sage words. “She lost a child, didn't she? A daughter?”

 

Daryl's chest was hollow when he muttered, “Yeah.” He reached down to pull up an overgrown piece of grass to chew on, the blade bitter on his tongue, but the action giving him something to funnel his nervous energy into. 

 

“Her daughter, Sophia, she got lost and when we finally found her she had turned,” Glenn explained to Tyrese and Bob when it became clear Daryl wasn't going to elaborate.

 

“Can't be easy,” Tyrese said. “Having another baby after something like that.”

 

Daryl felt obligated to defend her. Between the grass in his teeth he said, “She's tough, she's doin’ alright.”

 

He said it, but he didn't know how true the answer was. She'd confessed to him she had fears, and that she wasn't sure if she was going to be able to be a good mother to their baby after the loss of Sophia. Daryl didn't doubt her for a second—knew she'd be a good mother as sure as the sky was blue—but he didn't know, not really, what she thought about on a daily basis. She didn't share with him what it felt like to be pregnant again, and to feel all the same changes to her body she'd felt with a child she no longer had. Two children, in fact, remembering her confession about Jackson that had thrown him totally for a loop. The thought that she'd had more than one pregnancy before this one would have never crossed his mind. He didn't often think of who she was before she was the woman he knew now.

 

He was struck just then by how little he actually did know about her. He could tell you unfailingly about her strengths, weaknesses, and all the fundamental parts that made her  _ her _ , but he had no idea about the small stuff.

 

What was she like as a teenager? Did she ever go to college? What was her favorite way to spend a lazy Sunday? Did she have a favorite color?

 

He couldn't answer those questions for anyone in what he now considered his family, but the others weren't the mother of his child. He imagined a little girl, with Carol's face, asking him her mother's birthday, and him coming up blank because he never once thought to ask.

 

“I know we don't have to tell you this, but I’m going to anyway,” Rick said as he turned back towards the work he was doing on the fence. With his back to Daryl, he said, “Do right by that woman.”

 

And Daryl wanted to say he was trying, harder than he'd ever tried at anything. Instead, he just gave a grunt and picked his forgotten cinder block up from off the ground. He stacked the blocks, chewed on grass, and tried to sort out the puzzle of reconciling who he was fundamentally, with whom Carol needed him to be. Hopefully the pieces fit somehow, and weren't just from separate puzzles altogether.

 

The walkers snarled against the wire, with rotted flesh and exposed gristle, and Daryl wished the world were as simple to him as it was to a walker. The dead got fed, that's all they lived for. 

 

He took the knife from its holster, and thrust it through the temple of a walker with yellow hair. He stacked cinder blocks, the world marched forward, and he marched right along with it.

 

—-

 

“When’s your birthday”

 

Carol blinked. “Beg pardon?” 

 

“Your birthday,” Daryl repeated. “When is it?”

 

“Daryl, half the time I don't even know what month it is. Does knowing my birthday even matter?”

 

It was well past sundown, and they were spending the evening together, this time in Daryl's cell. She was laying down on his bed, one hand resting on her swelling belly. She'd taken off her cardigan and was stripped down to a tight undershirt that showed off what was no longer a secret to anyone anymore. Daryl was on the floor, his back up against the bedframe, his head resting against the mattress.

 

“I ain't saying I’m throwing you a party, I just wanna know when it is,” he said.

 

“What brought this on?” she asked, and Daryl sighed, thinking he should have expected this. He was fool to think he could come in and barrage her with personal questions and not raise her suspicions. But he was determined; was trying to do right by her, like Rick had said, and he figured a good place to start was by getting to know the little things about her.

 

“It’s just something I don't know about you that I should,” Daryl said, thankful he was facing away from her and didn't have to make eye contact. “Birthdays might mean jackshit to us, but maybe she'll wanna know.”

 

“Hm?”

 

“The kid. What if she comes up to me someday and says, 'what’s momma's birthday,’ and I gotta be that jackass that goes, 'I dunno, baby, I never bothered to ask?’”

 

He could feel Carol's eyes boring into the back of his skull. He didn't blame her for her silence—that was easily the most open he'd been talking about the baby. It was weird to speak of her in real life hypotheticals. It made it feel like she may one day actually exist.

 

“February fourth,” Carol said finally. “What's yours?”

 

“May fourteenth,” he mumbled. 

 

He wasn't sure why that felt so intimate to hear, and even more so to share. Maybe it was because, like she'd insinuated, the passage of time was different now, and something like a birthday was so explicitly a  _ before _ concept, and that world was another lifetime ago. It was a lifetime where the two of them would have never had cause to meet, and would have given the other next to no thought if they had. Were they only compatible now because of what they'd been through, or was their friendship intrinsic to who they were as people? And did it even matter?

 

“What's your favorite movie?” Daryl asked.

 

“Oh my God,” Carol said, but she said it with a laugh. “Mm, probably  _ Pan’s Labyrinth _ .” Daryl made an involuntary noise of disgust, and Carol smacked him on the shoulder. “What's wrong with  _ Pan's Labyrinth _ ?”

 

“Nothin’,” he said, tilting his head back to find her smirking at him. “It's just, I only watched it this one time, and it was after taking ‘shrooms with Merle. Couldn't read a damn word of the subtitles and the movie scared the hell out of me. Didn't sleep for two days after that shit.”

 

Daryl was never a hard drug user like his brother, but he'd partake in the lighter stuff on occasion. For a moment, he worried this revelation would upset Carol, but to his relief, she burst out laughing.

 

“It's funny you say that,” she said. “Because I had a similar experience with the movie  _ Labyrinth _ . The David Bowie one?”

 

When she just looked wistfully up at the top bunk without continuing, Daryl nudged her arm with his head. “You can't say that and then not tell the story, asshole.” 

 

“Don't call me an asshole, asshole,” she said, flicking his forehead. “Okay, fine. It was the night of high school graduation, and I was at a house party with some girlfriends, just watching movies and talking about our futures and whatever else it was we talked about at that age, when this one girl brings out tabs of acid. And I’m kind of this timid thing. I’d smoke weed here and there, but I’d certainly never done any psychedelics, and I just  _ absolutely couldn't possibly _ do them on a whim at a graduation party.”

 

“So you dropped acid.”

 

“I absolutely did.” Daryl snorted. “And so it kicks in about halfway through  _ Labyrinth _ , and it is quite the roller coaster. I'd never seen something so intense in my whole life.”

 

“I bet.”

 

“Shh, it gets better. So the next day, I’m talking to one of my friends who was at the party, and I am going on and on about how crazy the movie was, and eventually she stops me and she says, 'you know you didn't actually watch that whole movie, right?’ And of course I ask her what she's talking about, and she tells me I got up to go to the bathroom halfway through and never came back. So I ask what it was I watched then, because I’m remembering it very clearly, and she tells me that they eventually came looking for me, and I was sitting in the bathtub staring at the wallpaper, and as far as anyone could figure, that's where I’d been that whole time. They said it took another ten minutes to convince me to leave, and that I kept rubbing the walls.”

 

“Jesus Christ.”

 

“To this day, I still don't know how that movie actually ends. As far as I know, it involves some very animated floral wallpaper, and that's what I'm sticking with.”

 

Daryl laughed silently into his hands for a moment, before turning fully to face Carol. “So you ever drop acid again?”

 

“Never.”

 

“Pro’ly for the best.”

 

“Probably.”

 

It took Daryl a second to realize he was looking at her much too fondly. Before he became totally transparent, he cleared his throat. “‘Kay, so what's your favorite food? Pot brownies, right?” he ribbed her with a small smile. She huffed a laugh.

 

“Hey, if it's made of chocolate, I’ll eat it.” She then furrowed her brow. “Oh, you ass, why'd you have to say that?” 

 

“Say what?”

 

“Why'd you have to bring up chocolate?”

 

“Why, the thought making you sick?”

 

“No, the opposite.” She pouted her lower lip and said, “I think I’m having my first real pregnancy craving, and I can't even get you to go steal me some from the kitchens, because when I was still working them I remember we gave the last Hershey bar to a kid who had almost gotten bit. That little fuck.”

Daryl choked on his own spit. The world was full of so much tragedy, so he was extra thankful for the times when Carol said totally unexpected and delightfully inappropriate things.

 

“Hold on,” he told her. He pulled himself to his feet and grabbed a knapsack he'd thrown onto the top bunk. He rummaged through it, until he felt what he was looking for at the very bottom. He grabbed it and then held it out to Carol, who let out an honest-to-god gasp.

 

“ _ How _ ?” she asked, holding the Snickers bar he'd given her in her hands like a prized jewel.

 

“You gave me it, 'member? During that run.”

 

“You kept this that long? I raided that whole shelf intending to share with the kids, and then ate it all myself.” She peeled the wrapper off and took a bite, her eyes fluttering closed.

 

“Better self control, I guess,” Daryl muttered with a hint of amusement.

 

“I’m too happy to even argue with you,” she said with her mouth full. She opened her eyes and looked at him with such genuine appreciation Daryl felt like he was under a spotlight. “The world has ended, and yet you still manage to get a pregnant woman her food on demand. And to think you thought you'd be no good at this.”

 

Daryl was glad she shut her eyes again when he couldn't help his self-satisfied grin from forming.

 

Doing right by her—maybe it didn't need to be so complicated after all.


	6. Chapter 6

The infection started so rapidly that no one had a chance to get a hold on it before several of the prison residents were mauled to death in their sleep.

 

The widespread sense of panic was tangible. 

People had become complacent.  _ Daryl _ had become complacent. For nearly a month, there had been no signs of trouble. The reinforced fence had held, Maggie and Sasha had brought back water and not long after a string of showers refilled their local source, and his relationship with Carol had become smooth again, the night with the anecdotes and chocolate finally breaking through some ice neither one of them had been willing to admit was there.

 

She was fully showing now; not round like a ball, but there was no mistaking what was under her shirt, which never ceased to give Daryl a strange fit of butterflies in his belly whenever he looked too close. In addition, and to his relief, her appetite had returned with a vengeance, and he made sure they knew to give her bigger portions. (Even still, he'd try and sneak her some of his, and usually she'd turn it down, but every so often her hunger would get the best of her, and she'd take the offering with a sheepish thanks.)

 

She'd announced to him the week prior that she was entering the second trimester, and that the risk of losing the baby was much lower now. There was still caution in her voice whenever she talked about the kid, but at least getting this far had convinced her it was okay  _ to _ talk about her. They still avoided logistics or speculation—anything that involved where the baby would sleep, what she would look like, what they'd call her, and so on—but Carol would let Daryl parrot the minimal information about fetal development he'd read, and make comments here and there, piping up with information she already had from previous experience, and that, Daryl figured, was progress.

 

But they had become complacent, and now they were being reminded why they weren't allowed to do that. There had been that run that turned nasty and took Zach out in the process, the walkers on the other side of the fence were fighting the reinforcements hard and were winning, and now they'd all awoken to a reanimated Patrick wreaking havoc on the unsuspecting residents of Cell Block D, the original culprit, they soon discovered, being a sickness that was now a threat to them all.

 

The scene had been horrific, and Daryl was wrought with guilt over his spit-shake douchebaggery towards the now late Patrick, but there were bigger things to worry about, like the fact that it appeared members of their community were now vomiting up and asphyxiating on their own blood.

 

An emergency council meeting was called, which was what brought them to the meeting room now, all sitting amidst a nervous tension that permeated the air. Everyone was shaken from the morning’s carnage, but seemed reluctant to show it. They were the leadership, after all. 

 

When the meeting began, they all turned to Hershel. Dr. S was an invaluable resource, sure, but Hershel would forever be  _ their _ doctor, ever since the day he kept Carl breathing against the odds. 

 

“First things first,” he told them. “We have to prevent this from spreading. Right now only Karen and David are infected. Let's try and keep it that way. Caleb and I have had them relocated to Cell Block A until they've recovered.” The 'or the alternative’ was implied.

 

He continued, “We need to keep the infected away from the healthy. That includes anyone who has been exposed, even if they're not showing symptoms. That’s everyone in this room. We also need to give priority to keeping those most vulnerable in our group safe from being subjected to whatever it is we’re dealing with here. That includes the very old and the very young.”

 

The statement hit Daryl like a ton of bricks. He had been so overcome with the stress of cleaning up the bodies of people he sat at dinner with, he hadn’t stopped to consider the implications a sickness could have on them; what it could have on Carol and their unborn child.

 

She was going to hate this, but there wasn’t another option.

 

His eyes sought hers, and she was already looking at him from the chair beside him. She was frowning, but her expression voiced resignation. She gave him a small nod, and Daryl allowed himself to breathe as he returned the gesture. She looked to Hershel and asked, “What about me?”

 

Because of course she fell into both categories of exposed and also vulnerable. Daryl saw firsthand what this new sickness could do, the gristle of shredded flesh still embedded beneath his nails from where he dragged bodies out of the prison by their mauled limbs. A flush of anger washed over him, which, if he bothered to analyze it, he would have known was really a cover up for the fear he was feeling. 

 

He was confident in his ability to keep Carol safe from the walkers, and he trusted in the resources they had available for the birth, but he could not stop a sickness with a crossbow. The best thing he could do for her, he realized like a punch to the gut, was stay as far away from her as possible, and hope they got lucky. And Daryl did not like putting something so precious to him up to mere chance. He dealt in the things he could see, feel, hear, taste, and touch. That’s how he knew how to protect.

 

“We’ve got to keep you separated from both the exposed and the general population,” Hershel said, telling Carol what she surely had already deduced. “Your pregnancy makes you especially vulnerable. There’s no telling what this illness could do to an unborn child.” 

 

“And it wouldn’t matter either way if the mother didn’t survive it,” Carol added bleakly. Daryl chewed hard on his lower lip, while Hershel just offered a nod of bitter agreement.

 

“You'll go to the tombs,” Hershel told her. “Away from the others. You still may be a carrier, you’ll have to be secluded.”

 

Daryl went through the rest of the meeting feeling like he'd swallowed a stone. They put him on tentative med retrieval duty, should the situation get worse, and while he knew he couldn't refuse it if it came down to it—knew that the prison as a whole was depending on him—it still went against every fiber of his being to leave Carol behind.

 

Out in the hallway, after they'd adjourned, Carol grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him aside.

 

“You good?” he asked her. “Feeling okay?”

 

“I don't have any symptoms, if that's what you're asking. Don't know how 'good’ I’m doing, though. I hate the idea of being locked up somewhere, being no use to anyone. Feels too much like being a burden.” She crossed her arms in front of her.

 

“You are being a use to someone,” Daryl said. Carol gave a bemused shake of the head, and Daryl gestured towards her midsection. “You're being a use to her; keepin’ her safe. That ain't a burden. We all got jobs, and that one's yours.”

 

Carol ran a hand absently over her swelling belly, and pressed her lips into a thin line.

 

“A job like that doesn't help the prison any. At least Hershel, even when put away, has knowledge to give; can give insight on what's happening, so that Dr. S isn’t handling it alone. All I’m doing is sucking up resources for a child that is going to suck up even more of them once he's born.”

 

“Carol—” Daryl started, but she held up a hand to stop him.

 

“I’m going to do it, I’m going to keep us both safe, because I have to, and because I don't want to lose this baby. I know you need to hear me say that, so this is me saying it, I am  _ not  _ trying to lose this baby. But don't feed me bullshit about this being my job. Call it what it is. A burden. Selfish. There is no greater good here.”

 

Carol gave off an aura of total self-loathing, and Daryl couldn't fault her, because he understood it. Hadn't he once been lost in this group? Wondering why they kept him around, because what use could he be? 

 

“You ain't a burden,” Daryl told her. “You help this group s’much as anyone. It ain't selfish to be safe.”

 

“You're not safe,” she said, eyes wide and accusatory. “You're probably going out there on a run, that's as far as safe as you can get, but you're doing it, because you know you gotta for the rest of us.”

 

This was getting them nowhere. Daryl set his jaw and said, “Well, soon as I get pregnant I’ll quit goin’ out on runs, that fair?”

 

Carol huffed a short laugh out of her nose. “Yeah, that's fair,” she said quietly. She took his hand in hers just long enough to give it a squeeze. She asked, “Are you okay?”

 

There was exactly nothing okay with what was happening around him right then, but Carol already knew that. He chewed his bottom lip for a moment, before giving her a nod and a tight smile.

 

“Gotta be,” he said.

 

—-

 

There was very little gore in comparison to the bloodbath the morning prior, but still this scene was worse.

 

With Tyrese shaking to his left, and Rick standing stock still at his right, Daryl had to take a moment to ground himself. He breathed in deep and winced as he inhaled the scent of charred flesh.

 

Because charred flesh was all that was left of Karen and David now, their bodies black ash on the roof. Murdered. They had been murdered.

 

Tyrese was becoming more and more escalated the longer they stood before the bodies. He ranted and raved, saying, “We have to find her killer, we  _ have _ to!” 

 

“We will, but you gotta calm down,” Rick said, holding his hands up, looking like someone trying to approach an angry dog.

 

“Don't tell me to calm down,” said Tyrese, and without warning he shoved Rick hard in the chest. Rick stumbled back into Daryl, but straightened himself up before Daryl even had time to properly react.

 

Here was the thing: Daryl noticed everything, and among that everything, he had come to realize that Rick's strings were facing a lot of resistance, and were about one good, hard tug away from snapping.

 

And Tyrese was tugging, much harder than was advisable.

 

When Rick retaliated, it was not the retaliation of a leader whose group member had just suffered a tragic loss. The way in which Rick went for Tyrese was brutal and unsympathetic, as he slammed his knuckles into Tyrese's cheekbone.

 

The two men quickly became a mess of angry, thrashing limbs, rolling around on the dusty cement ground. It was Rick against Tyrese, grief against grief, two variations of the same suffering tumbling out in the form of fists and blood.

 

Daryl allowed them to briefly fight it out, figuring they may get something out of it, and not wanting to get in the middle if he didn't have to. It quickly became evident, however, that this was not a fight that was going to end with just minor bruises—the men were fighting to maim, and the doctors had enough on their plate. Daryl shook his head, and forced himself to become involved.

 

He grabbed Rick by the back of the shirt and, after tearing him away from Tyrese, tossed him bodily to the side. The presence of Daryl seemed to bring Rick back to his senses, but Tyrese was still nothing but pain. He pushed himself to his feet, and threw a right hook into Daryl's face. 

 

Daryl saw red, and almost took a swing, before the rational part of him took over and reminded him that continuing the fight would, in fact, be wholly counterproductive. Instead, he lunged at Tyrese's midsection, shoving him backwards until he had him pinned against the wall.

 

Tyrese resisted at first, spitting rapid fire swears and hatred, until, with the suddenness of a popped balloon, he deflated, eyes still wide and crazy, but body slack against Daryl's forearm crushing his chest.

 

“You done?” Daryl asked. Tyrese said nothing. His wild eyes flickered towards the blackened bodies still lying on the ground. His expression turned from one of rage to one of heartbreak, and Daryl understood, because he privately knew that sometimes those two emotions could be very much the same.

 

“Why would someone do this to her?” Tyrese's voice was shattered.

 

Daryl didn't say anything. Internally, he thought it was likely that Karen and David weren't going to survive much longer anyway, but he doubted that would help soothe any wounds. And of course it didn't justify it. He looked towards the bodies like the tracker he was, and tried to find any evidence anyone else wouldn’t be privy to.

 

There were footsteps in the dust. Only one set and small, most likely a woman's, but a strong one; someone with the upper body strength to pull two bodies by herself. She would have had to have had a motive. The fact that Karen and David were the only two currently infected was no coincidence. She would have done it out of obligation, believing she was helping the prison as a whole by destroying the threat at its source.

 

A thought flashed through Daryl's mind; a sour, unsettling one that he pushed down almost immediately. But once a thought arrived, it's impossible to forget it completely, and as he trailed behind Rick, leading Tyrese away from the crime scene, the thought continued to speak, like a tiny, buzzing mosquito, and he did his best to ignore it.

 

Once inside, Tyrese shrugged himself out of Rick’s grip and stalked away in a huff. When he was out of earshot, Rick turned towards Daryl. He had blood on his face, and a nice purple welt forming on his chin. He pursed his lips, hands on his hips, and asked, “You got any ideas?”

 

“‘Bout who done it?” Daryl asked.

 

“Mhm. I’m goin’ through a list in my head, but I just can’t think of any of us who would be able to kill in cold blood like that. Maybe a newer resident? Someone we didn’t get to know well enough?”

 

The mosquito in Daryl’s head buzzed louder, and he swallowed thickly.

 

“Beats me,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. Rick regarded him just long enough to make Daryl shift his gaze away uncomfortably, but then Rick nodded and clapped a hand on Daryl’s shoulder.

 

“Thank you,” he told him. “For stopping us back there...Stopping me.”

 

Daryl chewed on a cuticle. “Ain’t nothin’,” he muttered between it. Rick offered him a fleeting smile, and then turned on his heel and left. 

 

Daryl stayed behind, the solitude bringing the buzz of the mosquito out louder than before. He examined the space leading to the door. He found the same footprints, and smeary, red drag marks. Something on the wall caught his eye, and he stepped closer to examine it. It was a single bloody handprint. He held his own hand up to it, and found his was much bigger. It was definitely the handprint of a woman, and definitely the handprint of the killer.

 

He dropped his arm to his side like a weight.

 

_ Buzz, buzz, buzz _ , went the mosquito. 

 

—-

 

“What happened to your face?” Carol’s voice was muffled through the glass separating them. They mirrored each other’s stances, both standing straight with their arms crossed over their chests. Daryl untangled his arms just long enough to touch the cheek that had met Tyrese’s fist. The skin was hot and tender where the bruise had formed over the last few hours. He hadn’t looked in a mirror, but he was sure it did nothing to improve his appearance. 

 

“Tyrese,” he said, letting his arms cross again. He watched Carol process his response, but her face didn’t betray anything out of the ordinary. She merely furrowed her brow, and asked,

 

“Why did Tyrese hit you?”

 

Daryl ran his tongue over his bottom lip and considered how best to phrase his answer. “Karen and David,” he said. “Someone killed ‘em.”

 

She reacted the way one would have expected her to. Her eyes went wide, and her mouth dropped slightly. That nagging mosquito in Daryl’s head grew a little quieter.

 

“How?” she asked.

 

“Stabbed in the head; burned after that.”

 

“And Tyrese clearly didn’t handle it very well? Not that I can say I blame him.”

 

The mosquito pointed out that Carol voiced no curiosity over who the killer might be.  _ That doesn’t mean anything _ , Daryl told the mosquito, but he doubted it even as he thought it. 

 

And then Carol went and said,

 

“Does that mean the illness has stopped spreading? Karen and David, they were the only two infected; with them gone, maybe no one else will get sick,”

 

and Daryl’s stomach dropped.

 

“No,” he said flatly. “Sasha’s got it. Glenn too. People are coming down with it left and right. Karen and David managed to spread it before they were killed.”

 

Carol didn’t say anything. Neither did Daryl. They held each other’s gaze for a long moment, until Carol finally gave him a small, humorless smile, and asked, “Are you going to tell Rick?”

 

Because of course he knew. If he didn’t know it before he came to see her, he knew it the second she asked if the illness had stopped, because hadn’t that been the motive? Hadn’t the killer stabbed Karen and David to death to save the prison at large? And who else had the strength—physically, but also mentally—to do something like that?

 

“No,” Daryl said. “He thinks we’re looking for a cold blooded killer, he’d never look at you the same.”

 

Carol nodded. “And what about you?” she asked.

 

What about him? Well, that was certainly a question. He had hoped, with all his might, that it hadn’t been her, but truth be told, he knew it from the second he saw the footsteps; from the first buzz of the mosquito. Could he look at her the same? They all had a little blood on their hands, but usually it was in defense. Did this count as defense? Defense against the illness, sure, but to end not one life, but two, as they were lying incapacitated in bed—it just didn’t sit right.

 

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s done.”

 

“I had to try, Daryl,” she said. “No one else was going to, and if there was a chance that it would save the prison, then I had to try. They weren’t going to survive anyway.”

 

He wished she would stop trying to justify it, because it only made it worse. Daryl also found that what was bothering him just as much, possibly more, was the deception. She’d told him,  _ again _ , that he was going to keep herself and the baby safe, and she had broken the promise,  _ again _ .

 

“Shouldn’t have exposed yourself,” he muttered.

 

“I was already exposed, that’s why I’m in here alone, remember? I wore a mask.”

 

“You left a bare handprint. You got their blood on you.”

 

“I showered.”

 

“Still.”

 

“I haven’t been out of here since.”

 

Daryl stared steadily at the space beside her head, not able to meet her eye. His thoughts were a jumbled mess, and he was not going to figure them out right then. He didn’t have the time.

 

“I gotta go,” he told her. “Hershel’s sending us on that run, now that more people are infected.” Carol didn’t say anything. He forced himself to look at her, and wished he hadn’t when he saw the sadness etched on her face.

 

“I did what I thought I had to do, Daryl,” she said quietly. Daryl regarded her. Plump cheeks, thick hair, rounding belly—maybe what she’d done had been her version of protecting their child. That didn’t make it right. It also didn't make it wrong.

 

“Be safe,” he said. He didn’t wait for a response. He turned away from her, and headed back towards his cell block. He didn’t look back.

 

—-

 

When they arrived back at the prison, Daryl and Michonne immediately got swept up in getting the fence back up among a sea of walker corpses. Behind them, Tyrese and Bob took the medicine and hurried inside to start administering. 

 

Sweating, breathing hard, once the fence was back up in an albeit precarious, yet standing position, he turned to Rick. 

 

Even though his thoughts on the matter were far from settled, the first words out of his mouth were, “Is Carol okay? The baby?” And the relief that flooded him when Rick nodded was indication enough that he'd find a way to get past this. 

 

Rick couldn't know. No one could, especially not Tyrese, whose actions on the run suggested that his current state of mind did not put him above shooting a bullet into a pregnant woman’s brain. They'd have to come up with a story; tell them the culprit was among those who had died in quarantine. If Daryl said it, they'd believe it, and Carol’s poker face was better than anyone's. It would be their own nasty secret to carry together, because he was here to support her, and if that's what it took, then that's what it took.

 

He clapped a hand on Rick's shoulder, and went to the bathrooms, taking a bit of time to clean up and gather his thoughts. Afterwards, he sought her out in the tombs. He knew they wouldn't let her leave yet, not until the patients were no longer contagious, for which he was grateful, happy to have a hand in keeping that stubborn woman safe.

 

He tapped on the glass and waited. She appeared from out of the shadows of the dark room, and lit up when she saw him standing there, alive and well. He felt the same seeing her, not realizing he'd been so worried about her exposure to the illness until he knew she was in the clear. His reservations towards her melted like ice in the sun, replaced with a more familiar undercurrent of persistent concern.

 

“Did you get the medicine?” she asked, and he nodded.

 

“Soon as the others start gettin’ better we'll get you out of here.”

 

“You get into any trouble?”

 

“Nah. Or well...” He paused. “Tyrese wasn't at his best.”

 

Carol ducked her head. Daryl let her collect herself. When she looked back up at him, her eyes were brimming. “I'm sorry I hurt him,” she said. “I am, and I don't want you thinking what I did was easy. Far from it. But Daryl, I need you to know something. I need you to know, that if I had the same knowledge I had then, I would make the same call. I need you to know that's who I am, and those are the choices I will make, if the prison needs me to. And if… if that affects how you see me, then I understand, but it won't change anything. I can't let it.”

 

Daryl swallowed; chewed on his inner cheek. “I get it. Dunno if I agree with it, hell, don't know if I  _ disagree _ with it, but I get it. I meant when I said it's over. I ain't tellin’ anyone, and you won't either. We'll tell them it was someone else, someone we lost to the illness, and we'll move on. That's all we can do.”

 

Carol swiped a tear from her face and nodded.

 

“Dr. S died,” she said to him then. “Rick came and told me a little while ago.”

 

Daryl's mouth went dry. “We still got Hershel?”

 

“'S’far as I know,” she said, shrugging. “Bob too.”

 

Daryl scowled at that. At Carol's questioning expression, he shook his head and said, “Piece of work, that guy is. Don't trust him with you if we can help it.”

 

She didn't press him. “I’m just saying we're not out of options because we lost Dr. S. I don't want you worrying about it.”

 

It seemed unnecessary to point out that he was going to anyway. He wasn't thrilled at his choices of a one-legged veterinarian or a drunk army medic delivering his child.

 

“I been thinkin’,” he said instead. “I want us to share a bunk.”

 

He said it with a confidence that was entirely fabricated, and he was proud he'd managed to say the words and maintain eye contact at the same time. She didn't reply for a long moment, and self-doubt began creeping in something awful.

 

“So you can keep an eye on me?” she asked finally, a crestfallen expression plastered on her face, like their whole previous conversation had been for naught.

 

“No,” he said honestly. “Been thinkin’ it for a while now. I was thinkin’ it was stupid to sit around worryin’ every night that you're gonna need me for somethin’, if I could just be right there. Then I thought, that when she's born, it'd make the most sense for us to already be used to sharing a cell together, so I can help you at night. And after what happened in Cell Block D, yeah, I guess I do wanna keep an eye on you, just not for the reasons you think.”

 

“You think I can't take care of myself?” Carol asked.

 

“I think you shouldn't have to do it all alone,” Daryl corrected. “This is half my responsibility, so lemme take it.”

 

Carol knitted her eyebrows together, and Daryl braced himself for the rejection. He added, before she could shut him down, “Half the time I’m in late, anyway, you'd never know the difference. And if you need me to fuck off every once in a while, I can do that too. I just, I dunno, wanna be nearby in case somethin’ happens with you or the kid.”

 

“I’m not against it, Daryl,” she said, and his heart picked up speed a little at that. “It's just…with what happened, what I did, I can't help thinkin’ that you're going to end up feeling some type of way about it that I can't control, and maybe we should put some distance between us until you're sure about this.”

 

“We done distance before, it don't work,” Daryl said flatly. 

 

Pulling away from her after Sophia, she found a way to drag him back.

 

Hiding from him when she found out she was pregnant, he sought her out himself.

 

If they pulled apart now, he knew they'd just spring right back together. They were tethered. 

 

“I know, but—”

 

“Nah,” Daryl interrupted. “I ain't avoiding you. We're gonna move past this. Maybe it'll take some time, but we'll take the time together. Now's no time for us to get caught up in our own bullshit; what's done is done, and we got that little one to think about.”

 

“Yeah,” Carol said distantly, looking down at her stomach. Daryl had a sudden and strange impulse to touch it. He hadn't asked to thus far—didn't see much point since all the information he'd read said it was still too early to feel anything, and what was the purpose in just patting her belly?—but he wanted to then, as though touching her would help remind him of his end goal. He cursed the glass between them, and watched Carol rub a hand over her small bump instead.

 

“Can we then?” he asked after a moment. “Share, I mean?”

 

“I always thought you were supposed to move in together  _ before _ getting pregnant,” Carol said, and when she lifted her head she was giving him that teasing smile he hadn't seen in some time, and was surprised to find he had missed.

 

“Never been great at following directions,” Daryl said, and she smiled wider.

 

“My cell,” she said. “And you'll clean up after yourself, no leaving sweaty button ups all over the floor to stink up the place.  _ And _ snoring is cause for temporary banishment if you wake me up, because it takes me forever to fall asleep lately.”

 

“I don't snore.”

 

“You do leave sweaty shirts on the floor, though. Anything caked in dirt, blood, or hasn't been washed in so long that it can sit upright by itself gets sent straight down to laundry. Deal?”

 

“I don't got that many shirts.”

 

“Daryl. Deal or not?”

 

“Fine,” Daryl said, his tone sounding long-suffering, but inside he was triumphant. “Deal.”

 

A hookup, a baby momma, and now his roommate—maybe they weren't together the way he wanted, but it was more than nothing. In fact, it was starting to feel remarkably close to being something.


	7. Chapter 7

Daryl would never say it aloud, but sharing a cell with Carol was his new favorite thing.

 

He had never been one for confined spaces. When they first found the prison, he'd slept up on a perch with nothing but a flat pillow and a thin blanket, even though there were several perfectly good beds within reach, because the thought of being that closed in was too much for him to handle. 

 

With previous lovers—and he used that term  _ very _ loosely—he avoided bed sharing as often as he could, and on the handful of occasions when a girl decided he was worth spending the whole night with, he was up until dawn, grimacing, hot and claustrophobic against an unfamiliar body, and didn't properly breathe again until they were gone.

 

But sharing a room with Carol? He actively welcomed it.

 

He hadn't realized how often he was fretting about her well-being from across the cell block until he didn't have to anymore. She was right there, and he knew she and the kid were safe. 

 

Like he'd told her, he often came back late. He'd creep into the cell and shed his vest and boots, pushing them up against the wall in a sort of organized heap, mindful of his deal with her. Carol, for all her complaints about not being able to get enough rest, slept like the fucking dead, and he'd maneuver around the cell in the dark, listening to her light breathing. She snored a little due to pregnancy congestion, and Daryl found that delightfully ironic, but he would never tell her.

 

On the top bunk, he'd settle in each night and take in the sounds of the night. He heard every whistle of winter wind outside, the coughs and rustling of their neighbors, and he felt like a guard dog, watching over Carol, until sleep would finally claim him. And there was something about having her there, just below him, that gave him the best sleep he'd had in years.

 

One night—two and a half weeks or so after the last of the residents stopped showing symptoms, and Carol had been freed from the tombs and Daryl had moved in—Daryl came in from his watch shift to find Carol still awake, illuminated by a single candle, laying on her back, hand on her belly, a look of concentration on her face.

 

“You okay?” he asked as a greeting, closing the cell door, shutting the makeshift curtain made of an old sheet, and swinging his crossbow off his shoulder.

 

“Fine,” she said distractedly. She furrowed her brow at the bunk above her.

 

“What’re you doing?” Daryl asked, shoving his hands in his pockets as he approached her.

 

“I think I can feel the baby,” she said. Daryl paused.

 

“Feel it? Like feel her moving?” Carol nodded. “How can you not be sure?” If something alive was moving inside of  _ him _ , he felt certain that he'd be able to tell.

 

“Doesn't start out as big kicks like you hear people always talking about,” she explained. She turned to look at him. “He's still too tiny for that. But I've been having little flutters that I thought had to be gas or something, because I didn't feel movement until nearly 20 weeks with both my other pregnancies, but this is way too frequent, I’m pretty sure it's him.” Carol read his face and saw the question he wanted to ask but was too embarrassed to say. “You wouldn't be able to feel it yet. Give it a couple weeks, though, and he'll be doing goddamn somersaults in there.”

 

“Will it hurt?” he asked, staring at her stubby fingernails scratching her stomach absently. “When she's bigger?”

 

“I’m sure every now and then he'll get a good kick to the ribs in, but at worst it's usually just uncomfortable,” Carol said with a one-armed shrug. “The part I never got used to was being able to see the baby move under the skin. It always made me feel like I was in the movie  _ Alien _ ; like my gut was gonna burst open.”

 

“Pretty sure the alien burst out of that person's chest, not their gut, so you're pro’ly good.” 

 

Carol grinned. “Oh, well, that's a relief,” she said.

 

Daryl huffed a laugh out of his nose. A comfortable lapse in the conversation fell over them. Daryl thought about the tiny little movements happening inside Carol. He shook his head.

 

“What is it?” she asked.

 

“Nothin’, just…” He chewed on the tip of his tongue while he searched for the words. “There's really a kid in there, huh?”

 

Carol hummed. “Yep, seems like it,” she agreed. She pursed her lips, and gave Daryl a guarded look. “How are you feeling about it?” she asked, sounding surprisingly vulnerable.

 

How he felt about it depended on the exact second you asked him. One moment he could be wracked with fear, and the next he could be daydreaming about teaching a little girl with Carol's face how to shoot a crossbow, and his chest would feel strangely tight.

 

Carol being pregnant brought up a lot of emotions for him, including, but not limited to:

 

  * Fear
  * Excitement
  * Nervousness
  * Guilt
  * Happiness
  * Sadness
  * A general sense of unease
  * Worry
  * Plenty and plenty of worry
  * Genuinely
  * A lot
  * Of
  * Worry



  
  


“A lot,” he told her truthfully. “I feel a lot about it.”

 

And while it wasn't an answer that made a whole lot of sense, Carol seemed to understand. She pulled herself into a sitting position, her shirt riding up as she did so. She tsked in frustration as she tried to pull it back down.

 

“I’m already getting too big for my clothes and there's still so much time to go,” she said. “I need to let the waistband out on my pants, and see if I can't find some elastic material to make them into maternity clothes, but I've been too tired to bother. I wouldn't even care much, except half my shirts keep pulling up, and it's cold in here with no heater.” She tugged uselessly on her shirt, but it didn't have enough give to make much of a difference. A lot of their winter clothes were leftover from the winter spent on the road, when they'd all been nothing but skin and bone. The shirt had been small on her before she'd been pregnant—it didn't stand a chance now.

 

“Here,” Daryl said, walking over to his semi-organized pile of clothing. He snatched up one of the few button-ups he had that still had sleeves. He tossed it at her and she caught it. She raised an eyebrow at him.

 

“What do I do with this?” she asked.

 

“Wear it?” Daryl said, because that seemed obvious. He scoffed as he watched her examine the article of clothing like she was performing an inspection. “It ain't for no fashion show, it's so you don't freeze to death. Wear it as a sleep shirt, and tomorrow I’ll go and see if we got any spare winter clothes lying around from that run I went on with Michonne 'while back.”

 

Carol considered the offer. A sliver of her lower belly skin was exposed to the chilly cell air. She made a noise of defeat, and without preamble, grabbed the hem of her shirt and tugged it over her head. Daryl blushed instantaneously, and ducked his head, at which Carol let out a breath of laughter.

 

“Daryl,” she said with a smile in her voice. “As endearing and gentlemanly as your respect for my privacy is, I'd like to remind you that you've seen me wearing much less than this.”

 

The amount of time it took Daryl to decide if that meant it was okay to look was enough time for her to tug on his shirt and start with the buttons. When he did finally lift his head, she was almost completely covered, except for part of her bra, and some substantial cleavage that had certainly been influenced by the pregnancy. His eyes were drawn to it like a moth to light, and even though he tore them away immediately, Carol still noticed, and had to make it all worse by giving him a wink.

 

“Stop,” he muttered, and was mortified when his voice croaked on the syllable like a pubescent boy.

 

“Sorry,” Carol said, not sounding remotely apologetic. She finished buttoning up the shirt, leaving the top two undone. “How do I look?” she asked, putting her hands under her chin and grinning in an exaggerated pose.

 

She was joking, but taking in the sight of Carol sitting on a bed in their shared room, swimming in his clothes, smiling so sweetly at him, made his throat go dry.

 

“Like you need to turn that light off and get some sleep,” he said evasively. “'S’late.”

 

Carol had a gleam in her eye that made Daryl feel incredibly transparent, but he got to his feet anyway, and walked over to blow the candle out. The flame disappeared, and the cell went black.

 

“Thanks for the shirt,” Carol said, the sound of her rustling under the covers seeming louder than usual in the dark.

 

“You warm enough? Need another blanket?” He only had one as it was, but he'd give it to her without a moment's pause.

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“'Kay,” he muttered. He felt his way to the ladder, and climbed up onto his bed, the frame creaking under his weight.

 

“Goodnight, Daryl,” Carol said softly from below him. He couldn't help but grin, just a little. Even before the turn, he didn't get goodnights very often. When he replied, his voice was impossibly gentle.

 

“G’night.”

 

—-

 

One week later there came the day where Daryl apparently could not do one goddamn thing right.

 

At least that's the way Carol made it seem.

 

It was as though she had woken up angry at him—for no discernable reason that Daryl could tell—and then stayed that way. 

 

He got out of bed that morning at his usual time, a bit before dawn, to go see if there was anything outside to hunt for, even though he had shit luck in the winter. He toed on his boots and shrugged on a jacket, and just as he was getting ready to leave, Carol's groggy voice rang out, saying,

 

“Could you be any louder?”

 

Daryl was stealthy by nature, and was always cognizant of how much noise he was making when Carol was sleeping, so he knew he hadn't been any louder than any other day when him getting ready to go hadn't been a problem, but he apologized anyway, mumbling an, “'M sorry,” and picking up his crossbow as silently as he could. Carol just huffed and rolled over onto her other side, back to him. Daryl chocked it up to her being half asleep and grumpy, and didn't think much more about it.

 

That is, until lunch, when he sought her out at one of the tables. She was sat in a chair beside one of the little girls Daryl thought was called Mika. 

 

Mika had picked her bowl clean, and was looking down at it forlornly. Everyone's rations had been cut until the weather became mild enough to grow more food, and the prime hunting season restarted. Carol, who was still getting bigger portions due to her condition, took a big spoonful of her stew and scooped it into Mika’s empty bowl.

 

“Thank you, ma'am,” Mika said politely, although her eyes betrayed her child-like excitement, as though having a full belly was synonymous with getting candy for supper. 

 

“You finish that and go help the others wash up the dishes,” Carol told her. Mika scarfed down the rest of her food in just a couple big swallows, and then nodded. She took her dishes and headed towards the kitchens.

 

“You sure you should be givin’ your food away?” Daryl asked Carol softly, once Mika was out of earshot. Carol rounded on him with a frown.

 

“It was a few bites, and she was hungry,” she argued. “She needs to eat.”

 

“So do you,” Daryl said. “Kids get more than the adults anyways, she's not gonna starve.”

 

“Neither am I.”

 

“Little one needs the calories.” Daryl nodded towards her ever-growing midsection, covered now by a properly fitting shirt he'd found her. “Here, take the rest of mine.” He started to hand his bowl over to her, but she pushed it away with a scoff.

 

“Thank you so much for your vote of confidence in my ability to take care of myself and the baby,” she said hotly. “Believe it or not, I am actually an adult who knows what I should and should not do to stay healthy.”

 

“I just meant—”

 

“Climb out of my ass, Daryl,” Carol said, getting to her feet in a swift, angry motion. Daryl faltered, unsure of how to respond. Carol  _ never _ spoke to him that way.

 

In the end, it didn't matter. She turned on her heel, and without so much as a goodbye, showed herself out of the dining area, leaving Daryl still holding a bowl of stew out in front of him.

 

After that particular outburst, Daryl decided to stay out of her way for as long as he could. Of course, having made this resolution, and being eternally mocked by the universe as he often was, he finished everything he needed to do several hours earlier than usual. Typical.

 

He tried busying himself with other menial tasks, but for once, no one had a single damn thing for him to do. Maggie and Glenn were macking up in the watchtower, so that was a no-go, the fence was holding steady, some newer residents had practically scrubbed down the whole prison, and Judith was asleep. He thought about just going outside, but the temperature had dropped low enough that it had started to flurry, and he'd never admit it to anyone, but as much as he preferred the outdoors, he actually hated being cold. He was like a cat; he needed sunlight and warmth.

 

At that point, trying to hide out was starting to feel cowardly, so after snagging a quick supper (where Carol was noticeably absent), he returned to their cell.

 

When he entered, he involuntarily made himself seem small, as though trying to make himself seem as non-threatening as possible. Carol was sitting up against the wall on the floor, a pillow supporting her back. She was stitching a hole together in a pair of Daryl's jeans.

 

“You don't have to do that,” Daryl said, eyes cast down and pose guarded.

 

“Not like you're going to do it,” Carol snapped, answering the question 'is she still irritable’ with a single sentence. Daryl sighed, and Carol looked up at him sharply. “What?” she asked.

 

“Nothin’,” Daryl muttered, feeling suffocated in the tension and wanting to turn right back out the way he came.

 

“Somethin’,” Carol countered, jaw set.

 

“Just…” Daryl faltered. “Did I do somethin’ to piss you off? You been…  _ off _ all day.”

 

Carol set the pair of pants down in a heap and crossed her arms. “Off, huh? Well, maybe it's because I get up at the crack of dawn listening to you rustling around, and then I gotta go work a full day, lugging around  _ this _ —” she gestured at her stomach, “—everywhere I go.”

 

Daryl stuck a finger in his mouth and began chewing on a cuticle. He started to say, “Is there somethin’ I can do to help—” but Carol wasn't finished.

 

“My feet hurt, my back hurts, I can't stop fucking peeing, not to mention everyone in this whole damn prison treats me like I’m some fragile piece of glass, like I can't possibly still be useful because I had to go and get myself knocked up, and then there's  _ you _ , just always standing idly by, with your...your…” she waved a hand, searching for the words. “ _ Oral fixation _ ,” she decided on finally.

 

Daryl paused and blinked at her.

 

“Oral fixation?” he repeated.

 

“You're always chewing on something. You chew on your goddamn cigarettes, for chrissake.”

 

“Okay, but,” Daryl gave her a steady look. “ _ Oral fixation _ ?”

 

Carol stared back at him for a long moment, and Daryl wasn't sure if she was going to start yelling again, when a small, reluctant smile spread over her face. Daryl frowned at her as she covered her face with her hands and groaned.

 

“I sound like a lunatic,” she muttered. She peeked between her fingers. “I know I do. It's not you, you haven't done a damn thing wrong, my hormones are just completely out of whack and I’m taking it out on you. I’m sorry.”

 

The 180 blindsided Daryl. He didn't do well with anger being thrown at him, but she seemed so sincere and embarrassed, pressed against the wall with her face hidden, that he forgave her pretty much instantly.

 

“S'okay,” he muttered. He went over to her and nudged her so she would scoot forward. She did so with a furrowed brow. Daryl sat himself behind her, and asked, “Upper or lower back?”

 

He couldn't see her face, but could hear the smile in her voice. “Lower,” she said softly. She hummed when Daryl began massaging her sore muscles. “I spend the whole day acting like a crazy person, and you give me a back rub. How's that fair?”

 

“Figure it's a trade off. You grow us a baby, I’ll let you get pissy with me. Least I can do.”

 

“Still, it ain't right of me to act that way. You tell me when I’m being unreasonable, you hear? Being pregnant isn't an excuse.” Daryl made a non-committal noise, as Carol relaxed into his hands. “Wanna know the real reason I was mad at you all day?” she asked after a minute. “It's really embarrassing so maybe it'll make us even.”

 

“I ain't keepin’ score,” Daryl muttered, distracted by the fact he had his hands all over her. 

 

“I’ll tell you anyway. I had a dream last night,” Carol said slowly, “that you left me and the baby so that you could go pursue a relationship with Maggie.”

 

Daryl's hands stilled. 

 

“Come again?” he asked.

 

“I’m serious. We had the baby, who was actually just Judith in the dream, and you came up to me, told me you were in love with Maggie, and—I remember this part vividly—that she 'fulfilled you sexually,’ and you and her were going to run off together to find your own prison.”

 

“Pffffft,” was the noise Daryl made. Carol turned slightly to face him. He kept his hands on her hips while shaking his head at her.

 

“I woke up so angry at you, and then angry at myself for being so angry about a dream, and so I just spent the whole day angry.”

 

“Well don't worry, I ain't ditchin’ you and the kid for Maggie.”

 

“Mm, you're right, Glenn is much more your type.”

 

“Stop,” Daryl said as Carol grinned. 

 

“I  _ am _ sorry,” she breathed. Their faces were very close to one another, and Daryl had an unpleasant urge to bridge the gap and show her how much he did not intend to leave her, but he was frozen in place.

 

“S’okay.”

 

“Daryl?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I’m gonna go pee now.”

 

Daryl snorted, slightly relieved the moment was broken. He helped her to her feet. She squeezed his hand before heading out the door, and Daryl watched her leave. Without thinking about it, he began chewing on his fingernail. He paused mid-chew and frowned at his hand.

 

“Fuck it,” he muttered, and went up to his bed, chewing away, oral fixation be damned.

 

—-

 

Gravel kicked up under the wheels of the car as Rick drove down the dirt road. Daryl was in the passenger seat with his crossbow in his lap, and Michonne was in the back behind the driver's seat, sword across hers.

 

A few days after the day of Daryl fuckups, Glenn came back to the prison with a lead on some weapons. With the growing number of prison residents, they were in need of more ammo and guns. Rick, who was steadily returning to the Rick everyone looked to as a leader, had recruited Daryl and Michonne to go with him to check it out. Daryl had been wary to go, but Carol had insisted, telling him, “The world doesn't stop being the world just because we're having a baby. You still gotta do your job.”

 

And of course she was right, but that didn't mean he had to like it. He wasn't sure what he expected to happen. The prison was quiet, she was barely 20 weeks, and Hershel had been checking her blood pressure regularly and she was fine. Perhaps that was the problem. Everything was too fine. If Daryl had learned anything, it was to always trust the calm to have an incoming storm behind it.

 

“How's Carol?” Rick asked out of nowhere, about fifteen minutes into their drive. Actually, it wasn't out of nowhere. Daryl had expected it. He couldn't be alone with anyone nowadays without them bombarding him questions about Carol, which is why he was often not alone with anyone.

 

“Fine,” he muttered. Then, as an afterthought, thinking about that stressful day, added, “Irritable.”

 

Rick, and, to his surprise, Michonne both laughed at that. Daryl glanced in the rearview mirror to give Michonne a questioning look. Usually he could trust her to be on his side; he felt betrayed.

 

“Sorry,” she said, still grinning. “It's just, those pregnancy hormones? They're no joke.”

 

Daryl made a quick series of deductions:

 

  1. Michonne said this with a confidence only someone with experience would have, ergo, she had been pregnant before.
  2. She did not currently have a child with her.
  3. Her child was no longer with anyone.



 

He filed this information, but didn't voice it, because that wasn't his way. Instead, he just shrugged and said, “She's uncomfortable all the time, I don't blame her for bein’ pissy.”

 

“Good man,” said Rick. 

 

“What's the dumbest thing she's gotten mad at you about?” Michonne asked eagerly. Daryl didn't respond, so she decided to share her own anecdote, unprompted, perhaps as misplaced encouragement. “When I was pregnant, there was this one evening where all I wanted was this burrito supreme from this taco place we'd go to sometimes. Like, I would have cut off my left hand for one of them.

 

“So my boyfriend comes home from work,  _ without _ a burrito supreme, and I am just livid. Bear in mind, I never once asked him to get me a burrito supreme, I just was mad that he didn't, I don't know, read my mind and get me one.

 

“So I give him the cold shoulder for a while, give him a lot of 'nothing’s’ when he asks what’s wrong, but eventually he pulls it out of me that I want him to go get me a burrito supreme. And he's like, 'That’s it? I’ll go right now,’ and that just pissed me off more, because how dare he solve my problem?”

 

Rick was laughing while Daryl just squinted, baffled, into the rearview mirror.

 

“He comes home, with the burrito supreme, and all my anger is gone. Just,  _ woosh _ , and I am suddenly full of such intense love for him that I start bawling. I mean, actual tears, snot down the face, ugly crying, because what did I do to deserve such a man who would bring me such gifts as a burrito supreme?

 

“Anyway, he calms me down, and we sit on the couch and he gives me the burrito supreme. I take one bite, am completely repulsed, and throw the whole thing in the trash and eat a grilled cheese instead.”

 

“You didn't even eat the thing?” Daryl asked.

 

“Barely even swallowed that one bite.”

 

“Lori went through this phase when she was pregnant with Carl,” Rick piped up, “where the only thing she wanted to eat was blueberries. But she was still having really bad morning sickness, so I came home one day and found her in the bathtub, actively throwing up on herself and crying, and I figure she's crying because she's sick,  _ in _ her bath water no less, but she just looks up at me with tears in her eyes, and says, 'Those were the last of the blueberries.’”

 

Daryl gave a silent thanks that even pregnant, Carol seemed slightly more well-adjusted. At least so far, he thought, giving a mental knock on wood.

 

“So what stupid thing has she gotten mad about?” Michonne pressed. “There's got to be something.”

 

Daryl didn't like talking about Carol without her being there to hear it, but Michonne and Rick appeared to be extending an olive branch, and he realized just then that he had been being Carol's support without having much himself. He said,

 

“She yelled at me for having an 'oral fixation.’”

 

Michonne snorted as Rick asked, “What the hell does that mean?”

 

“Don’t really know,” Daryl said, still not entirely sure. “She said later that she was actually just mad because of some dream she had.”

 

“Oh God,” Michonne said, as though Daryl had just given her war flashbacks. “The pregnancy dreams.”

 

“That a thing?” Daryl asked.

 

“Oh yeah. Sometimes they're nightmares, sometimes they're just baffling, but pregnancy gives you some of the most vivid dreams of your life. I remember this one I had where I gave birth to snakes. Just… a shitton of snakes. During a tornado. But the tornado just kept circling the house, while I delivered a bunch of snake babies all by myself. I can still picture it all like a movie, it was  _ that _ real.”

 

“That's disgusting,” Daryl muttered. Every new thing he learned about pregnancy made it sound less and less appealing, and he had the sudden urge to go up to Carol and apologise for putting her in such a state. And while he was at it, he may as well apologise to all women on behalf of men; pregnancy seemed  _ terrible _ .

 

“Did she say what the dream was?” Rick asked. Daryl flushed.

 

“It was nothin’,” he said evasively, which did nothing but encourage Michonne.

 

“That means it was definitely something,” she said mischievously. “Was it a sex dream? I bet it was a sex dream.”

 

“No,” Daryl said. “Stop.”

 

“It totally was. Tell me, has she gotten to the really horny part of pregnancy yet?”

 

Daryl wasn't even swallowing anything, but managed to choke on his spit anyway. He blushed crimson.

 

“ _ That _ ain't a thing,” he mumbled.

 

“It is,” Michonne assured him, as Rick said, “No brother, she's not kidding.” 

 

Daryl looked out his window. He wondered how injured he would be if he opened the door and barrel rolled out while they were still moving.

 

“Trust me,” Michonne continued, clearly not getting the hint that Daryl would prefer to talk about literally anything else. “Let's just say, there were at least two different occasions when I was pregnant where I came like, seven times in one session, and God rest his soul, but my boyfriend wasn't exactly a sex god, if you catch my drift.”

 

He'd at most only break a leg or get some road rash, Daryl reasoned, eyeing the road with longing.

 

“Yeah, well, that was you,” he muttered. “Don't mean that's everyone.”

 

Rick let out the least subtle cough imaginable, and Daryl tore his eyes from the road just long enough to glare at him. Rick shrugged.

 

“All I’m saying is she's not wrong.”

 

“Doesn’t matter either way. We ain't like that,” Daryl said. 

 

“Surely it wouldn't be a hardship to help a girl out, though, right?” Michonne ribbed. Maybe it'd be preferable, he thought, if jumping out of the car just killed him.

 

“No more,” he said, with enough severeness that the others knew better than to continue to tease him, but he could still feel their amusement practically radiating off of them. Eventually, the topic changed entirely, and Daryl was offered a reprieve.

 

Except not really, because from that moment forward, he couldn't help wondering, 'What if Michonne is right?’

 

—-

 

“Okay, why do you keep staring at me?”

 

It was early morning and they were out in the yard. The weather was brisk, and their breaths came out in wisps of fog on the exhale. Carol was looking comical wearing a men’s coat that engulfed her tiny frame, but it was the only one she had in the cell that fully zipped over her belly. 

 

She had woken up and was out of bed before him that morning, which was rare. He'd stirred to the sounds of her walking around the room.

 

“You okay?” he'd asked. She was bent over as far as she could, stretching her hamstrings.

 

“My legs are cramped,” she'd said. “I’m gonna go walk around the yard.” And he'd gone with her, and here they now were, Daryl sat in the grass, absently pulling up brownish blades and tearing them to pieces, while she did stretches.

 

“I ain't staring at you,” Daryl said. She raised an eyebrow, her hands supporting her lower back. Daryl glanced back down at the ground sheepishly. The truth was he had been staring at her, off and on, watching her move her body every which way, embarrassed when thoughts of his conversation with Michonne crossed his mind. Truth be told, the conversation had been weighing on his mind for over a week now, and he was starting to wonder if he should just man up and ask Carol about it.

 

(The thought would be almost laughable if it weren't so terrifying, the idea that Daryl could ask something like that and not immediately combust.)

 

“You are,” she said.

 

“Well, what else is there to look at?” he asked defensively, wiping shredded grass off his jeans.

 

“It's not that you're looking at me, so much as  _ how _ you're looking at me,” Carol clarified, lowering herself to the ground as gracefully as she could manage. Her movements were becoming more and more awkward with each passing day.

 

“How do you mean,” asked Daryl, knowing perfectly well what she meant.

 

“You wanna ask me something, but you don't know how,” she said. “Or you're embarrassed about it. So out with it, what do you wanna know?”

 

Daryl wondered if he was really that conspicuous, or if she really just knew him that well. Probably a combination of both.

 

“It's nothin’,” he said. 

 

“Right. Did you really expect that to work?”

 

No, but he'd held on to a foolish hope.

 

“Okay, it's somethin’, but if I ask it'll be weird so just… let's just forget it.” Carol continued to look at him expectantly. “You reading to the kids today?” he asked, hoping with that same fool's hope that she'd let him change the subject without an inkling of tact.

 

“Daryl.”

 

“Please don't make me say it,” he said, not too proud to resort to begging.

 

“Come on, how bad could it possibly be?”

 

Daryl let out a long sigh. He pointedly looked away from her, because if he was going to be able to get the words out in any semblance of an order, he could  _ not _ be looking her in the eye.

 

“Was talking with Michonne last week,” he said in his best mumble. “Guess she had a kid back before, and she mentioned… it just came up that…Hmph.” 

 

“It just came up that…?” Carol prompted.

 

“Just… she said, and Rick said it too, that pregnant women sometimes get…” He made an incomprehensible hand gesture that did nothing to clarify anything.

 

“I have no idea what you're talking about, Daryl, you're going to have to use your words.”

 

Daryl  _ hated _ having to use his words. 

 

“Just. If you ever… need somethin’, you can ask me,” he said. He hazarded a glance her direction, where she was furrowing a brow.

 

“I already know that,” she said, bemused.

 

“I know, but I mean like… if you  _ need _ somethin’.”

 

Between the emphasis on the word and his significant expression, Carol appeared to piece things together. Her eyes widened marginally.

 

“Daryl,” she said slowly. “Is this a sex thing?”

 

Daryl regretted missing his opportunity to jump out of that moving vehicle. He shrugged and tucked his chin down and began fiddling with his shoelace.

 

“Are you offering to have sex with me?” she asked, and Daryl couldn't decide if she sounded shocked, amused, or a bit of both, and there was no way he was going to look at her to see.

 

“Not if you don't wanna. It ain't for me, I don't want you to think I wanna have sex with you. No. I mean, that's not what I mean; I  _ do _ , but not if you don't...I ain't tryna get in your pants, I’d never… unless it was what you wanted. But if you don't want… fucking hell.” He stood up abruptly and stared off into the middle distance, quickly saying, “I’m gonna go hunt; see if I can't scrounge somethin’ up for supper.”

 

“But—” Carol started.

 

“See you tonight,” he muttered, and turned on his heel and got the hell away from her before she even had a chance to object.

 

He was almost to the gate when he realized the only weapons he had on him were his knife and a small pistol, his crossbow still tucked away in their cell. Not exactly hunting gear, but there was approximately a negative three percent chance of him having the balls to turn back around to get it and risk running into Carol, so he continued towards the the exit anyway. 

 

His bike was parked alongside the other vehicles they'd amassed. He hopped on it, grabbed the key he always kept on a chain around it in case there was cause for a quick escape—although the intent behind that had been more 'mortal danger’ related than 'mortification,’ but who was asking—and road up to Tyrese, who was keeping guard. Daryl didn't offer the man any explanation; merely sat on his rumbling bike expectantly until Tyrese pulled the wire fence doors open for him. Daryl road out past the handful of walkers that ambled towards him with their famished desperation, and took a familiar route down to the treeline.

 

He parked his bike and hid it in the underbrush, on the off chance someone came along and tried to five finger him, and took off into the woods.

 

He wandered aimlessly for a while, until he found a tree with some convenient notches and low hanging branches that made it an easy climb. He hoisted himself up, went as high as he could get, and then situated himself on a branch with his legs swinging over the edge, like he used to do as a kid. Once, when he was about seven, Merle had dared him to try and make it to the top of a large oak on the outskirts of their menial property, and decades later, Daryl still had the scar on his forearm from the compound fracture he'd gotten when he fell.

 

He breathed in the forest air. It was a nice reprieve from the stuffy prison, but it still wasn’t the same. Nothing smelled like it used to, nor did he think it ever would, but he took personal offense at the forest being unfamiliar, even in a miniscule way. Everything smelled of decay; a constant reminder of the death that haunted them all, and yet here he sat, swinging his legs from a tree branch, feeling foolish and pubescent, all because he’d talked openly about sex with a woman he had a crush on.

 

He was, to put it simply, a disaster of a human being.

 

He peeled bark from the tree and tossed it haphazardly to the ground. What must Carol think of him? He imagined she thought he had brought up the topic because he himself was trying to get laid, not that he’d blame her if she did—rarely did one offer sex as a purely altruistic act—but it  _ was _ something he was offering for her benefit.  

 

Daryl had enjoyed sleeping with Carol—as much as one could enjoy screwing around on a dusty bookstore floor after a near-death experience, anyway—but his feelings for Carol went beyond fucking. At the end of the day, he could take or leave the sex, but it was  _ Carol _ he craved the way most people craved that carnal biological imperative, and for him to think that, for even one second, Carol believed he wanted her simply for what he could give him physically, was nauseating. 

 

He was going to have to clarify it all with her. It was going to have to involve words. It was not going to be pleasant. He was not remotely looking forward to it.

 

He wondered just how long he could stay in that tree.

 

—-

 

The answer turned out to be three hours, give or take, before he had to concede to the call of nature. After he relieved himself, he rode back to the prison, and for the rest of the afternoon, he avoided the places he knew Carol would be working like the plague, because he was an outright coward, and accepted that fact, because the alternative was having that conversation, and he had not psyched himself up enough for that yet.

 

In fact, by the time night fell, and most of the prison was in bed, he still hadn’t gained the nerve. He’d eaten dinner in a secluded corridor by the tombs, which was low even for him, and had switched watch shifts with Glenn, so it was approaching midnight by the time he finally found his way back to their cell.

 

He crept in with more stealth than he employed when approaching a skittish buck, and was flush with relief when the dim moonlight from the windows in the hall found Carol curled in a ball facing away from him. The conversation he was dreading could be avoided another day.

 

With a new sense of ease, Daryl toed off his boots and climbed up to his bed, wincing when the frame creaked under his weight. He stilled on the step, but Carol remained silent. He got to the top and laid down on his back, adjusting his pillow under his head, and let out what felt like his first real breath all day. He was in the clear.

 

“Daryl?” Carol’s voice rang out from below him.

 

_ Damn _ .

 

He briefly wondered if she’d believe he’d fallen asleep in the two minutes since he’d gotten into bed. 

 

“Daryl, I know you’re not asleep, you just got into bed.”

 

Forget that plan, then. He chewed nervously on a cuticle, glad Carol couldn’t see.

 

“I’m awake,” he said after a beat.

 

“I know,” she said. Daryl blinked as a sudden light filled the room from the lantern Carol clicked on. “Where’ve you been all day?” 

 

_ Hiding _ .

 

“Workin’.”

 

“You mean hiding?” 

 

Daryl furrowed his brow. He didn’t dignify that with a response. She really needed to stop reading his mind. 

 

“That thing you offered earlier?” Carol said softly. Daryl braced himself for the reprimand. “...Is that offer still on the table?”

 

He froze.

 

“What?” he asked.

 

“Sex,” Carol said bluntly, and Daryl blushed. “Did you mean it when you said we could have sex?” 

 

Daryl blinked several times at the ceiling. This was not how he expected this conversation to go.

 

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

 

There was silence for a tortuous several seconds, and then,

 

“We should do that.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Right...right now?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Should I...come down there?”

 

“Makes more sense than me trying to get up there.”

 

“Right.”

 

Neither of them moved.

 

“I’m gonna...do that, then. Go down.”

 

“That’s the idea,” Carol said, although the usual teasing had a hint of nervousness mixed in.

 

“Christ,” Daryl muttered, and he heard Carol huff a laugh. He swallowed and, before he could chicken out, pushed himself up and found his way down to the ground. Carol was propped up on her elbows, watching him. She seemed almost wary, and Daryl was suddenly concerned that she was only asking for this out of some sort of fucked up sense of obligation; to make him feel better about his humiliating performance that morning. “We don’t gotta if you don’t wanna,” he told her, and she shook her head quickly.

 

“I’ve been thinking about it all day,” she said, and damnit if that didn’t go right to his dick. While he’d been hiding in a tree, Carol had been thinking about fucking. No, not just fucking—fucking  _ him _ . 

 

(It was probably pathetic that he was turned on by minor validation of his self-worth, but he wasn’t about to psychoanalyze that.)

 

“Okay,” he whispered. He glanced over to make sure the hanging sheet was covering the door, and went over and sat on the edge of Carol’s bed. He looked down at her and felt stuck, not sure where he was supposed to go from there. She smiled at him.

 

“If you’re nervous,” she said. “I’d like to remind you that we’ve very clearly already done this before.” For emphasis, she gestured at her belly like she was showing off a prize on _The_ _Price is Right_. Daryl snorted.

 

“Yeah, I know,” he muttered, and he did. But this was different, and he wasn’t sure how to explain it. What happened in the bookshop had been done with little forethought—as evidenced by what had happened as a result of their negligence—but this was on purpose; preplanned, at least more than their first time. And on top of that, he was doing this to please her, which meant what he did mattered; this wasn’t some awkward, desperate fumble on the floor to prove they were alive, and he was not exactly self-assured in his abilities in the sack.

 

“Hey,” she said, reaching out and gently taking hold of his forearm. “It’s okay.” He relaxed a little—she always had a way of bringing him back from the edge. He nodded. She bit her lip then, a crease between her brow.

 

“What is it?” he asked.

 

“I know I don’t, you know, look my best.” With her free hand, she waved at her swollen midsection. “I’m a bit of a whale, and I haven’t showered, and…” she trailed off with a shrug. Daryl tilted his head in honest confusion. 

 

“What do you mean? You’re still really pretty.” The words tumbled out without his permission, and he just barely fought the impulse to comically clap a hand over his mouth. That was easily the closest thing to romantic Daryl had ever said in his entire life, and judging from the look of shock on Carol’s face, she knew it.

 

“Did you just call me pretty?” she asked, a slow grin spreading over her face.

 

“No. Stop,” Daryl mumbled, his face burning.

 

She pushed herself up and got in close to him so that she was just a breath’s distance from his face. “You totally did,” she whispered.

 

“Stop,” he said again, but this time it had no bite. He was distracted by her hand that was now snaking up his arm and settling in against the side of his face, her thumb tracing the outline of his jaw.

 

“Okay,” Carol said, barely audible. She leaned in the rest of the way and pressed her lips against his gently. It took him a second to collect himself enough to kiss her back, and when he did, she hummed a sound of approval that made his stomach flutter.

 

When they did this before, it had been quick and sloppy, with hurried, wet kisses, and Daryl hadn’t had time to appreciate it. This was the polar opposite. Carol led him in long, languid movements, opening her mouth and encouraging him to do the same, and she ran her tongue over his, impossibly slow. 

 

Daryl had never been kissed like this; he’d hardly ever been kissed at all. He didn’t know what he was doing, but it didn’t seem to matter. He followed her lead, and was a quick study, and she made little happy noises against his lips, so he figured he must be doing something right. 

 

He tentatively put a hand on her hip and she took hold of his shirt and pulled him down with her without breaking the kiss. He angled himself over her, mindful of her belly, and with growing confidence, slipped his hand under her sweater and ran fingers over her bare skin. He was briefly distracted by the obvious outline of her ribs.

 

“You need to eat more,” he said, pulling away slightly.

 

“Oh my God, shut up,” she said, pulling him right back. An argument for later, he decided, his hand ghosting over the side of her breast. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She leaned into the touch, so he touched her more, cupping her breast fully. She hissed softly.

 

“Sore?” he asked, starting to move his hand back, but she quickly grabbed hold of his arm to still him.

 

“A little, but that feels good,” she said. “They’re more sensitive, and there’s more to them; one of the few perks.”

 

Daryl had exactly nothing he was willing to say aloud on the matter, so he just captured her mouth again and ran a thumb over her nipple, which made them both tense.

 

“God,” she muttered, planting open mouthed kisses on his neck. It wasn’t that she’d been a statue when they’d done this in the bookstore, but her responsiveness to him now was next level. Daryl could hear Michonne’s “I told you so,” ringing loud and clear in his ear.

 

“What should I…” he fumbled with the words. “What do you want?” he asked with another tremendous blush.

 

“God,  _ everything _ ,” she breathed, bucking her hips up at him, and while he had to admit that was pretty hot, it wasn’t particularly helpful. So he decided he might as well do  _ his  _ favorite sexual activity, and see if that worked for her.

 

He started to move away from her. She made a noise of protest and he gave her a quick kiss of reassurance before scooting down and taking hold of the waistband of her sweatpants. Carol lifted herself up so he could tug them off, and he slipped them over her feet, taking her socks with them.

 

He ran his hands up the insides of her thighs, and she shuddered at the sensation. He leaned down and replaced his fingers with his lips, planting soft kisses on her milky white skin. He could smell her already, and that turned him on more than anything.

 

On more than one occasion, Daryl had heard his brother and his deadbeat friends talking trash on the women they’d somehow convinced to sleep with them.

 

“She’d be a great lay if she could learn to work that mouth instead of running it all day long,” and “I just looked her in the eye and told her, ‘Well, it ain’t gonna suck itself,’” were the common sentiments expressed, and it baffled Daryl, because he much preferred giving to receiving. 

 

He’d never been a fan of blowjobs; they required too much of the focus to be on him, and he didn’t do well under scrutiny, especially when touch was involved. But he loved eating pussy. There was no other way to put it—he loved eating pussy, and if all he got out of a sexual encounter was the chance to go down on a woman, well, he’d consider it a success.

 

The appeal, he figured, was a combination of things, but namely it came down to the fact that the attention was off him, and it was fun. That, and it was hot as hell. So many of his brother’s friends would balk at the idea of getting up close and personal with their women, but Daryl found nothing to be quite as sexy as smelling and tasting a woman’s arousal, and making them writhe and moan with nothing but his tongue. He was a tracker, a man who used his senses, and going down engaged all five of them to the extreme. 

 

Which was all to say that when he got the first hint of Carol’s scent, his intentions abruptly went from altruistic, to downright carnal.

 

Her panties were already soaked through, he noticed with a flush, hooking his fingers around the elastic and tugging them down. He had them to her knees when she reached out and touched his shoulder. He paused and looked up at her. She was positively wrecked already, breathing heavy and pupils dilated, but there was an air of hesitation about her.

 

“Okay?” Daryl asked. She swallowed hard.

 

“I’ve never had…” she said. “I mean, no one has ever…” She waved a hand at Daryl’s precarious position between her legs.

 

“Do you not want me to?” Daryl asked, hoping beyond hope she wouldn’t push him away. Carol bit her lip.

 

“Are you sure  _ you  _ want to?” she asked.

 

“Pfft,” said Daryl, because what a silly question. Carol searched his face. He knew she would find nothing but pure  _ want _ etched there. 

 

“You don’t think it’s gross?” she asked in a small voice. Daryl felt a surge of anger pulse through him at the thought that anyone would have told Carol she was undesirable in any way. Whether it had been her piece of shit husband, or an inexperienced high school boyfriend, or anyone in between, it was unexceptable. He was sure her uncertainty was a lingering phantom pain of being with people who didn’t deserve her.  _ He  _ didn’t feel like he deserved her, and he sure as hell knew to thank his lucky stars to have such a privilege. He shook his head so vehemently at her that he was surprised his neck didn’t crack.

 

“I want to,” he said. “Let me?”

 

It was a testament to how horny she was that she didn’t protest further. She just gave a shaky nod and laid back as Daryl worked her panties the rest of the way off.

 

He wanted to dive right in, but restrained himself, thinking she would be more comfortable if he went slow. He licked her inner thigh and worked a finger inside her as a starting point. She inhaled sharply and fisted the sheet on her bed. Daryl snaked his way closer and closer to her core, fingering her just enough to tease her. He kissed her where her thigh met her pelvic bone, and then mirrored the motion on the other side. She sighed in frustration and her hand found the back of his head and she gave him a small push forward as a way of saying ‘get a move on, already.’ Daryl huffed a breath of laughter—so much for hesitation—and quickly obeyed.

 

He removed his finger and replaced it with his tongue, dipping inside her briefly, before dragging a long lick from her entrance to her clit, and the moan he elicited from her was loud enough for anyone in the immediate vicinity to hear, but that didn’t stop him. He traced small circles around her clit, adjusting the amount of pressure by reading the signs of her body. Going down on women was the only thing sex related that he had any amount of confidence in. It was all about observation and implementation, and Daryl was excellent at paying attention. 

 

He sucked on her clit while slipping two fingers inside her. They slid in easy, her entrance slick. He hooked the two fingers and made a rhythmic motion against her walls while his mouth continued to write words of adoration on her most sensitive flesh. 

 

She was trying so hard to stay quiet, and she was failing spectacularly. She mumbled incoherent sounds and syllables, some that may have been swears, and some that may have been his name. At some point, her fingers had tangled in his hair, and she gripped him for dear life.

 

Her orgasm came crashing without warning, and she let out a yelp, before clamping her free hand over her mouth and making muffled moans into her palm while her muscles clenched and contracted around Daryl’s fingers.

 

He didn’t let up until her shuddering had fully subsided. He pulled his fingers out gently and licked them off like he would after a hearty meal. He did, after all, almost always eat with his hands.

 

He wasted no time climbing back up to the bed, finding her lips, and kissing her, slow and deep. He wanted her to taste how delicious she was—she wanted her to understand how delicious  _ he  _ thought she was, until every bad thing any man had ever told her about her body disappeared.

 

“Christ, Daryl,” she muttered into his mouth. He pulled back just far enough to see her face. If she was wrecked before, she was now utterly demolished. She reached up and began undoing buttons on his shirt. She fumbled, hands trembling, so he took over, letting his shirt hang open, exposing his chest. She gave him a once over and hummed a noise of approval that made Daryl blush. He was not one to worry much about his appearance ( _ clearly _ ); he’d always just figured he was an ugly son of a bitch, and it couldn’t be helped. So when Carol eyed his chest as if he were some Greek god, he was baffled.  _ She  _ was the beautiful one here, not him.

 

Because she was  _ so  _ beautiful. So beautiful it overwhelmed him. Her skin was bright and healthy with all the hormones coursing through her, and she had eyes that nearly sucked him into a hypnosis. Had she always had eyes like that? Had she always been this goddess before him? How much time he’d wasted only paying attention to all the ugliness of the world, when he could have been looking at her instead.

 

Even though she had just came, she was bucking her hips up against him. He was harder than he’d ever been, and wanted to see her come undone again. He was feeling lucky. He maneuvered himself so he could reach down and touch her once more. He swallowed her moan as he used his thumb to trace a gentle pattern on her clit. She was engorged under his touch, wet and pulsing, and it took almost no time at all before she was coming again, hard and fast, and he had to give credit to Michonne—that pregnancy horniness did  _ not  _ fuck around. 

 

Daryl was flush with pride when he pulled his hand from her. He’d only given three orgasms in his life before this, and now he’d given  _ two  _ in rapid succession. 

 

“Can we fuck?” Carol asked breathlessly. Daryl was caught off guard by her bluntness. 

 

“Yeah,” he muttered against her neck.

 

“Can I get on top of you?” she asked, and his dick went harder still, which, if you’d asked him just a minute prior, he’d have said was impossible.

 

“Yeah,” he muttered again, almost inaudibly. 

 

“Good. Move over. Get undressed.”

 

He followed her command without conscious thought. He got to his feet and shrugged his shirt off his shoulders and onto the floor. He paused, feeling exposed. She’d seen his scars—they only had so much privacy whenever they shared close quarters—but he’d fucked with his shirt on last time. It was one thing to see them in the dawn hours while everyone is half asleep and trying to get dressed so they can move on to their next location, and it was another thing entirely to be seen so intimately, even in the dark.

 

Carol noticed his hesitation. She got to her feet and stood before him. She was undressed from the waist down. She took hold of the bottom of her sweater and tugged it up over her head, and there she was, naked as the day she was born. Daryl swallowed. His looked her over like he never had, examining the way her bony ribs gave way to the roundness of her pregnant belly, and he was momentarily entranced by it, the way her body was constantly changing.

 

“It’s just you and me,” she said, taking a step forward and embracing him. She ran her hands down his back, her fingernails lightly scratching the skin in a pleasant way, and it was so unfamiliar to associate pleasure in a place he’d so frequently felt pain, that his breathing staggered. “Okay?” 

 

He couldn’t speak so he nodded, looking down at her and feeling even more breathless at the sight of her watching him with such a gentleness he was not accustomed to. 

 

Her hands slid down to his waist, and moved to the front, where she undid the button of his jeans. He stood still as she unzipped him and pushed his pants and boxers down together. They fell to his ankles and he stepped out of them. She pressed herself up against him, and the feeling of so much skin against skin almost sent him into sensory overload, but before he could process it, she was leading him by the hand back to the bed.

 

He laid down on his back and she climbed on top of him, straddling his hips. For a moment he was frozen; dazed, just watching her in awe. She bent forward to kiss him, and that reanimated him. His hands found her waist, and he moved his lips to her neck. 

 

She positioned herself over him, and his breath caught when she gripped him to guide her to her entrance. In the bookstore, there had been fumbling, both of them out of practice, but now she was so wet and they were so engaged that he slid into her easy as she pushed down.

 

The second he was inside her he got the intense impulse to tell her everything he felt at that moment. He wanted to tell her she was gorgeous, and that he wanted to be hers. He wanted to call her names like ‘baby’ and ‘sweetheart,’ and part of him wanted to be called silly endearments in return. 

 

He fought the impulse back, reminding himself that this wasn’t that kind of a fuck; reminding himself that at the end of the day, he was going to pull out of her, and they were going to go back to whatever neutral territory they’d been living in for the past few months—maybe even over a year, if he was being honest—and this wasn’t supposed to be any sort of declaration.

 

So he bit his tongue, and buried himself against her chest as she began to move her hips. It took her a minute to find a rhythm, but when she did it was perfect, and he couldn’t help bucking up with her, the two of them thrusting together.

 

He was completely surprised when her fingers tightened around his shoulders, and she contracted around him as another orgasm washed over her. She hadn’t come when they did this before, and she’d told him not to feel bad; that she never came from fucking alone. 

 

The feeling of her muscles tightening around him, with her biting her lip to muffle her cries, was more than enough to send him over the edge. He didn’t moan or groan or scream her name, because that wasn’t his way, but he let out a long hiss of breath, and a long syllabled “fuck,” as he emptied himself inside her, happy that this time he could do it without repercussion. 

 

She gave them both a minute to steady themselves, before leaning in to give him one last kiss, and carefully pulling herself off of him. He wasn’t sure of the protocol now. Should he just roll off the bed and leave her to it? That wasn’t what he wanted to do, but he wasn’t sure what she’d think if he stayed. Thankfully, she answered the question for him.

 

“Hold me for a minute,” she said, still catching her breath, getting on her side and grabbing hold of his arm to wrap around her. “It’s the gentlemanly thing to do.” 

 

She wasn’t going to get an argument from him. He got himself situated. The small space forced them to be pressed skin-to-skin, his chest against her back. Daryl could not recall a single time in his life that he had spooned someone. It surprised him to find that he enjoyed it.

 

He rested his hand lazily on her belly. It was harder than he would have expected, and the skin was pulled taut. He flattened his palm over it, glad for the opportunity without having to ask. They laid like that for a few minutes, breathing in tandem, when Daryl felt something bump his hand.

 

“Whoa, what the fuck?” he asked, pulling away with a bemused frown. Carol strained her head to look at him and she was beaming.

 

“Did you feel that?” she asked. Daryl pieced it all together.

 

“That was her?” he asked, feeling something very close to awe.

 

Nodding, she took hold of his wrist and placed his hand on her stomach again. He didn’t feel anything for several seconds, and then, suddenly, that same bizarre  _ bump  _ came again. Involuntarily, he let out a delighted and genuine laugh. Carol stilled.

 

“What?” he asked, worried he’d done something wrong.

 

“Nothing,” she said. “I’ve just never heard you laugh before.”

 

“Sure you have.”

 

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not a real laugh. You’ll snort, or huff, but you never laugh. That was the very first time I’ve ever heard you laugh.” 

 

Daryl considered this. It seemed impossible that they’d gone this long together without him laughing in front of her, but as he thought about it, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed either.

 

“Guess I never had reason to,” he muttered. Carol didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he heard her sniffle. “Are you cryin’?” he asked, startled.

 

“Hormones,” she said, quickly wiping her face. “Just hormones, ignore me.” 

 

“Didn’t mean to make you cry.”

 

“They aren’t sad tears.”

 

“Still.”

 

“Shh,” she said. She placed her hand over his and held it tight. “Thank you,” she said quietly. 

 

Daryl wasn’t sure if she was thanking him for the sex, or for laughing, or for something else entirely, but he said, “Ain’t nothin’,” all the same.

 

“Will you...would it be weird to ask you to stay?”

 

“You mean sleep down here?”

 

“You don’t have to.”

 

“Nah, ‘course I will.” 

 

He tried to sound casual, but Carol was flush against him, their baby was moving under their joined hands, and she wanted him to sleep,  _ actually  _ sleep, with her. 

 

“Thank you,” she said again, this time in a whisper. She burrowed into the pillow and Daryl wrapped her tighter.

 

He couldn’t find the words to say anything back. Instead, he just breathed her in and laid still, hoping to feel more movement from the baby. 

 

He wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing, and it was entirely possible he was free-falling, but at least he was enjoying the way down before he inevitably hit the ground.


	8. Chapter 8

_ How many walkers have you killed? _

 

_ How many people have you killed? _

 

_ Why? _

 

A simple system, but it hadn’t failed them yet. No system was foolproof, however, and when Rick found James Holloway—” _ Jim _ ”—he’d asked the three questions, and Jim passed the test.

 

_ “A dozen, maybe two.” _

 

_ “One.” _

 

_ “So she wouldn’t have to do it herself.” _

 

The trouble with the system was that it only earned them pieces of the puzzle that made up whomever it was they were bringing in. Everyone had two sets of histories—the Before and the After—and three questions only got you the Sparknotes version, and sometimes, crucial content was missed.

 

Daryl’s hackles were raised about Jim from the jump, but he couldn’t pinpoint why. He was entirely unremarkable; a wiry guy with flat hair and an overbite. Daryl guessed he used to be a paper pusher; middle class, average car, medium house, bland life. He was helpful enough around the prison. He couldn’t shoot for shit, but he could handle a knife, and was good at organizing, so they put him on inventory. He was polite—called Daryl “sir,” which was hilarious—and never spoke out of turn.

 

Daryl didn’t trust him one bit.

 

He thought it had to do with how Jim looked at Carol. Like everything Jim did, it was innocuous enough, and not so overt that anyone but Daryl would notice, but it seemed that whenever he believed no one was paying him any mind, Jim was watching Carol with an unreadable, non-blinking expression.

 

For the first week he was there, Daryl entertained the idea that he had the hots for Carol, which seemed bizarre. Not that Carol wasn’t still a gorgeous, strong, and occasionally terrifying woman, but as she neared her third trimester, and hung around Daryl in all her free time, Daryl would have guessed anyone wanting to make eyes at her would have assumed she was off the market. Not to say she was, necessarily. She and Daryl continued to fool around more often than not, but no significant proclamations had been made, so as far as Daryl knew, Carol considered herself a single woman. But even still, with a baby on the way, was she really up for dating? Of course not, Daryl told himself. Right?

 

But Jim didn’t act like a man with a crush. He never sought Carol out, never found excuses to talk to her, and, to the best of Daryl’s knowledge, had never even spoken to her outside of casual pleasantries. And yet, still he stared, when only Daryl could see, and that creeping feeling Daryl had about him got stronger, and maybe he couldn’t articulate why, but when had his intuition ever failed him?

 

By the second week of Jim’s stay, Daryl’d had enough of the guesswork.

 

The weather that day was mild for late February. Spring was on the horizon, and the prison residents—who had been cooped up inside for ages, too accustomed to the usual Georgia heat to be able to handle the unusually cold winter that year—were all milling about the yard, happy for some fresh air at last.

 

Carol was sitting on a fold-up chair, wearing fingerless gloves, and catering to a pile of ripped clothing with a needle and thread. From a few yards away, Jim was sat on the edge of a stool, pretending to be sharpening a knife, while watching Carol sew. Daryl was in the watchtower, watching Jim watch Carol sew.

 

An hour or so later, Michonne arrived to relieve him. She said something to him, and, distracted, he merely gave her a nod and shouldered past her. 

 

He sought out Jim. He had moved to the fenceline, using his knife, which Daryl doubted he’d ever really sharpened, to take down walkers. A couple other residents were on the fence as well, so when Jim caught sight of him, Daryl motioned for him to follow a ways away to get some privacy.

 

“How can I help you, sir?” He had a nasally voice, high-pitched as well, and Daryl briefly wondered if he was losing it, thinking a man like Jim could be a threat. Maybe he was, but he wasn’t about to take the chance.

 

“What’s your deal with Carol?” Daryl asked, not bothering to beat around the bush. Jim blinked in surprise.

 

“Carol?” he said, as though trying to place a face to the name. “Carol...oh, yes, she’s the pregnant one, correct?”

 

Daryl grunted in affirmation, and Jim hummed thoughtfully as he wiped the blood off his knife with a handkerchief he pulled out from his coat pocket.

 

“I don’t believe I’ve interacted with her, this ‘Carol,’ was it? I’ve no problem with her.”

 

Daryl knew a liar when he saw one. Jim smiled sweetly at him, and Daryl saw right through it.

 

“Look,” he said darkly, taking a step forward into Jim’s personal space. For the first time, mild worry crossed Jim’s face, but it was fleeting. He locked eyes with Daryl, with that same unblinking stare. “I don’t know what your problem is, but you stay away from her. You do anything to her, if you even look at her the wrong way again, I’ll turn your face purple, you understand?”

 

Jim tilted his head a little, the same sweet smile returning to his lips. “I understand perfectly, sir. I don’t intend to cause any trouble.”

 

Daryl gave him a once over. He didn’t feel remotely reassured, but at least Jim now knew he was keeping an eye on him.

 

“Good,” he grunted, and turned to walk away.

 

“Mr. Dixon, sir?” came Jim’s voice. Daryl paused and glanced back over his shoulder.

 

“What?”

 

“That little girl in your cell block? Judith? Her mother—did she die in childbirth?” Daryl’s silence gave the answer. Jim nodded. “Pity,” he said, and he turned back to the fence, driving his blade into walker skulls, and paid Daryl no more mind. 

 

—-

 

That night, the weather decided to take a sharp nosedive back to shitty. A storm rolled through just as the temperature dropped, and the result was a spitting of wet sleet. 

 

In Cell Block C, Daryl was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, trying not to shiver under his poncho. Carol was beside him, as she often was, wrapped in a blanket.

 

“Here,” she said, untangling herself and draping half the blanket over him, even as he shook his head.

 

“‘M fine,” he said, trying to push it back, but she grabbed his wrist to still him and set her jaw.

 

“You think I don’t feel you shaking? Take the damn blanket, it’s big enough for both of us.”

 

Daryl tried to protest, but Carol shushed him, and he sighed in defeat. Secretly, he was grateful—he  _ really  _ didn’t like being cold.

 

The rest of the C Block crew was huddled around the open space in various buried states of layered clothing and ragged sheets and quilts. No one felt like going to go lay down in their cold cells, or do much of anything else, to be honest. The sleet storm had totaled everyone’s motivation, but it was okay. The group hadn’t much time to just be together lately, and cold or no, even Daryl had to admit it was kind of nice to sit and listen to his family chat and laugh.

 

Predictably, after a while, Maggie requested a tune from Beth, who obliged, as she always did. Daryl wasn’t particularly fond of her little concerts, but it wasn’t like they had a radio, and her voice was nice enough. He leaned back and shut his eyes, listening to some church song from Beth’s childhood that she was singing to them now.

 

“Oh,” Carol said softly next to him. Daryl cracked an eye and saw her putting a hand to her stomach with a bemused expression. 

 

“You okay?” he asked, quietly, so as not to interrupt Beth.

 

“Fine,” said Carol. “He just started moving around like crazy. I think he might like the music.”

 

Daryl frowned as he processed this.

 

“Wait, she can hear that?” he asked.

 

“You didn’t know that?” Carol asked, grinning. “He’s been able to hear for a while; can even recognize voices. It’s neat, when babies are born, they can remember sounds from inside the womb, like what their parents sound like.” 

 

Daryl stared at Carol.

 

“ _ But I don’t talk _ ,” he said in horror.

 

“You talk some,” Carol corrected, but Daryl was shaking his head.

 

“What if she doesn’t recognize me? What if she thinks someone else is her dad? What if she thinks  _ Glenn  _ is her dad? You can’t talk to Glenn anymore.”

 

Carol was laughing, but Daryl was panicking. Why hadn’t he read more of that damn pregnancy book?

 

“I’m not going to stop talking to Glenn,” Carol said. “You still got time. Guess you’ll just have to talk more.”

 

“ _ About what? _ ” Daryl asked. What did people talk about besides what needed to be said? Daryl had no idea how to run his mouth. Daryl could go a full month without saying a word and he’d be just fine.

 

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Carol said, still smiling.

 

Fuck, thought Daryl, he was gonna have to.

 

—-

 

Carol was fast asleep. Daryl was absently tracing circles on her wrist with his thumb, because he could, and she was asleep, so he didn’t need to be embarrassed about it.

 

It’d been too cold to strip down completely, but Daryl had managed to get her off with some over-the-clothes action, and slipping a hand down her pants. She’d wanted to reciprocate, which was hilarious because she was already half-unconscious when she asked to, so Daryl had just kissed her forehead and told her to go to sleep. He genuinely didn’t mind—to be perfectly honest, the thing he liked best about the nights they fooled around was that she insisted on him staying in bed with her after, and it made it easy for Daryl to pretend they were more than just fuck buddies that were accidentally having a baby together. 

 

(Yes, he knew it was pathetic, but he’d take pathetic spooning over going back to his lonely top bunk, any day. Who knew Daryl Dixon enjoyed cuddling? He certainly hadn’t.)

 

Carol’s breath came out in tiny, tiny snores, her sinuses blocked up because pregnancy had to make everything in her body malfunction, or so it seemed to Daryl. (Frankly, at this point, if she came up to him and said, ‘I’m at the part of pregnancy where all my fingers fall off and I have to regrow them,’ he’d just accept it at face value.) 

 

He regarded her for a long time, wondering just how deeply asleep she was, because there was something he wanted to do, and it was tremendously humiliating. 

 

He decided to give it a try.

 

He untangled himself from her and slid down the bed, so slowly the mattress didn’t even creak, until he was face-to-face with her belly. He chewed on the inside of his lip a moment, suddenly awkward as he figured out his next move.

 

“Uh...hi,” he said, as loudly as he dared. “I don’t...I want you to know my voice, but I ain’t any good at talkin’, but I figure you pro’ly don’t care that much about what I say anyway, so I’m just gonna...I dunno...Shit...Wanna learn how to skin a deer? That’s useful, right?

 

“Okay, so, you’re gonna wanna good knife, and some damn strong rope, ‘cause you’re gonna have to hang it up to do it right. We don’t got the resources no more to do it all fancy like, but if you’re good at it, it don’t matter.

 

“Now, some people’ll hang the deer up by the achilles tendon, but my daddy taught me to do it by the neck. He was right sumbitch, but he knew his huntin’, so that’s what Imma teach you. Get the rope nice and tight, as high up on the deer’s neck as you can, and then pull it up onto a nice and sturdy tree branch. 

 

“‘Kay, so once you got it hangin’, that’s when you gotta start cuttin’, ‘cause the meat’ll go bad if you don’t get them organs out and cool the carcass right quick. The reason it’s better to hang ‘em by the neck it ‘cause you’re less likely to fuck up the innards and contaminate the meat. You’re gonna take your knife, and very carefully, you’re gonna—”

 

“Hey, Daryl? Are you teaching our unborn child how to skin a deer, in the middle of the night?”

 

Daryl froze.

 

“Didn’t mean to wake you.”

 

“So, that’s a yes? I’m not having a very bizarre pregnancy dream?” Carol asked groggily, propping herself up on her elbows and squinting at him.

 

“I just...I didn’t know what else to say to her,” Daryl said sheepishly.

 

“Okay, well, maybe keep the hunting lessons for the daytime?” She didn’t sound angry, but she did sound tired. Daryl considered this.

 

“People are around in the daytime,” he said. He felt silly enough talking to her stomach when he thought no one could hear—he wasn’t risking it when  _ people  _ were up and about.

 

“Daryl, you talk plenty. He’s not gonna think someone else is his daddy, I was just teasing earlier. He goes batshit every time he hears you.”

 

Daryl blinked.

 

“She does?”

 

To prove her point, Carol reached out, took hold of Daryl’s hand, and plopped it unceremoniously onto her bump. Under his palm, Daryl felt the baby moving around like she was doing gymnastics.

 

“You woke him up,” Carol accused.

 

Daryl tried to feel bad, he really did, but what came out of his mouth was an awed, “Does she really do that whenever she hears me?”

 

“When it’s just you and me, yeah. I think she can pick up your voice better when there’s no one else around.” Daryl fought a grin and failed. “So no more middle-of-the-night tutoring. If you wanna talk to him more, do it when the sun is up. Or better yet, when  _ I’m  _ up, because if I’m napping and you pull that shit, you’ll be sleeping in Glenn and Maggie’s cell.” 

 

“Why their cell?”

 

“I was gonna say, ‘out in the yard,’ but you wouldn’t really consider sleeping outside a punishment.”

 

“Maybe if it was still sleeting I would.”

 

Carol sighed, but it was a fond sigh.

 

“Move,” she said, pushing him until he was forced to roll off the bed and stand. He thought he was getting banished to his own bed until Carol stood up as well.

 

“What’re you doing?” he asked.

 

“Your child got excited about skinning deer and is now kicking the shit out of my bladder, so.” She slipped her feet into her boots. 

 

“Sorry,” Daryl muttered.

 

“Yeah, you better be,” Carol said, but it had no bite. “I’ll be right back. Don’t you dare go up to that top bunk. You’re keeping my bed warm, it’s freezing in here.”

 

Daryl didn’t need to be told twice—he was already back under the blankets before Carol was even out the door. 

 

He laid there for a while, waiting, thinking about how fascinating it was that the kid already knew his voice. He felt some kind of way about that, but damned if he knew what that way was. Flattery? Pride? Affection? Briefly, he wondered if it was love.

 

He spent some time analyzing that, when he eventually realized Carol had been gone an abnormally long time. He frowned at the cell door and listened. He heard Rick’s snores, the sleet hitting the windows, and someone’s bed creaking as they tossed and turned, but no footsteps. He felt a tingle of worry, but it wasn’t manifesting into panic just yet.

 

He waited some more.

 

By then, she’d been gone nearly twenty minutes, and Daryl’s intuition was sending warning sirens in his head. He rolled out of bed again and didn’t bother with shoes—the only things he grabbed was a flashlight and his gun.

 

He padded down the cement hall. There was no one stirring—no sign of anything out of the ordinary—but still, something felt off. He took the turn that led him to the nearest bathrooms, and stood outside them.

 

He debated calling out Carol’s name, in case she really was just using the bathroom and he was overreacting, but he thought better of it. He took a step and his sock soaked up something wet. He shined the flashlight down at his feet and was greeted by a tiny, red pool of blood. He immediately clicked off the safety on his gun, and, with a thundering heart, switched off his flashlight and slipped inside.

 

He heard a voice—a man’s voice, nasally and high-pitched—speaking softly, coming from behind one of the shower curtains. Daryl crept in further, moving along the wall with his gun out. He peeked around the curtain and his throat went dry.

 

It was Jim—quiet, innocuous Jim—and on the floor at his feet, bound, gagged, and bleeding from the head, was Carol. He was shining a light in her face, and Daryl could see her eyes going in and out of focus, as though she was on the brink of passing out, but was trying as hard as she could to fight it.

 

“You’re a selfish whore,” Jim was saying. Daryl noticed the knife he had poised in his hand, aimed right at Carol. “You think you can just fuck around and get pregnant and not give a single thought to the consequences, right?”

 

Carol, ever the battle hardened badass, betrayed not an inkling of emotion. Streams of blood leaked down her face from the cut on her temple, and Daryl had enough.

 

“Get the fuck away from her,” he said, coming into view and pointing his pistol at Jim’s head. Jim turned to him in shock, but his face fell almost instantly back to one of rage.

 

“Oh good, glad you’re here, I wanted to talk to you next. You’re just as bad as her, you know?” he said. “Just as selfish.”

 

“Put the knife down,” Daryl said. He glanced at Carol, who answered his unasked, ‘You okay?’ with a tiny nod. Daryl turned back to Jim.

 

“I had a group before this,” Jim said somewhat wistfully, ignoring Daryl entirely. “Me and my wife, we were with a group. Did you know I had a wife?” 

 

“Put it down or I put a bullet in your brain.”

 

Jim looked Daryl straight in the eye and dropped the knife like a weight; like it didn’t matter at all.

 

“There was a pregnant woman in our group. She slowed us down, but my wife insisted on keeping her safe. We never could have kids, back before all this happened, so I think it made her somewhat sentimental.”

 

“Now step away from her.”

 

“One day, there was this herd, and the pregnant woman, she just couldn’t run fast enough. She tried, but one of those things got ahold of her; grabbed her tight by the shoulders.”

 

“I said, get the  _ fuck  _ away from her.”

 

“Without thinking—I mean,  _ pure  _ instinct—my wife tore herself from me, and threw herself between the woman and the monster. Because that’s what you do, right? That’s what you’re supposed to do—protect the pregnant woman.”

 

“If you don’t move your ass—”

 

“I watched that monster rip my wife apart. She got eaten alive, and it wasn’t quick. She went down, screaming her lungs out, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do. And that pregnant woman? She got away without scratch. And then do you know what happened to her?” 

 

“I don’t really give a flying shit.”

 

“Died in childbirth. Hemorrhaged. And the baby? We had to put him down three days later because he’d starved to death. So my wife died for nothing; died because some selfish bitch thought it was right to try and bring  _ life  _ into this hell. And here I see it again, you and this whore. Who are you going to take down with you in the process, huh? I can see it unfolding now, and trust me, I’d be doing everyone in this prison a goddamn favor, taking you two out. They'd all thank me if they knew.” 

 

“You got ten seconds before I pull this trigger.”

 

Jim smiled the most unsettling smile.

 

“Fine,” he said.

 

It happened in the blink of an eye. Jim’s hand went to his waistband and produced a gun he’d had hidden from view. He aimed it at Carol. Without having time to think, Daryl pulled the trigger, and Jim pulled his. Two gunshots went off, one right after the other, hardly a second apart, and Daryl didn’t know who’s came first.

 

He lowered his gun to find Jim on the ground, eyes wide open and skull blown wide. Behind him was Carol.

 

“Are you shot?” Daryl asked, throwing himself to the ground to inspect her. His hands flew over her body, looking for injuries. “Damnit, Carol, are you shot?”

 

She mumbled something, and Daryl fumbled with her gag until he was able to rip it from her mouth. He cupped her face and searched her eyes for signs of pain. She looked back at him, eyes steeled, and much calmer than he. 

 

“You got him first,” she said, voice raspy. She cleared her throat. “You shot him and it threw him off target.” 

 

Daryl glanced up to see Jim’s bullet lodged in the wall adjacent to them, just an inch or two above Carol’s head. Jim never could shoot for shit. Thank god.

 

“You’re bleeding,” he said to her.

 

“He caught me off guard as I was leaving—hit me over the head. I went down.”

 

“You might have a concussion. Here, let me…” He helped her up gently and cradled her in his arms. She leaned back against his chest. “They’ll have heard the guns, they’ll come running,” he told her, inspecting the wound on her temple. “The baby…?” he asked quietly.

 

“He didn’t do anything to the baby specifically. I did fall hard, though. Falling—that’s how I lost Jackson, so I don’t know if...We’ll have to ask Hershel.”

 

“‘M sure you’re fine,” Daryl muttered, and he wasn’t sure if it was for her benefit or his. 

 

“What the hell?” Rick’s frantic voice rang out. Daryl looked up to see him staring down at Jim’s dead boy. Glenn and Maggie were close behind, with Michonne trailing them.

 

“He attacked Carol,” Daryl said, and he couldn’t keep the utter contempt out of his voice; the hatred. “She’s hurt, someone get Hershel, now.”

 

They didn’t need to be told twice.

 

—-

 

“Be careful,” Daryl snapped when Carol let out a hiss of pain while Hershel dabbed her wound with alcohol.

 

“It’s fine, Daryl,” Carol said quietly. Daryl was pacing like a caged leopard along the wall of their cell, arms crossed tight, and he couldn’t have disagreed with her more.

 

“It ain’t,” he muttered, still seething. “I knew that bastard was shady. I fucking  _ knew  _ it. Shouldn’t have kept my mouth shut, should have—”

 

“Stop,” Carol said. Hershel was placing a bandage over the freshly cleaned cut. “No casting blame, especially not on yourself.” Her voice was very no-nonsense, but Daryl was still escalated.

 

“You want me to not blame myself, fine, whatever, but I’m not defending that asshole.” 

 

“He had his reasons,” she said, touching her temple experimentally and wincing.

 

“Are you  _ agreeing _ with him? He could have killed you. Could have killed…” he trailed off. Hershel still hadn’t said anything about the baby.

 

“I’m not saying I agree with his reasons, I’m just saying he had them and he was doing what he thought he had to. And in some ways, maybe he did have a point—I’ve said from the beginning that this is selfish. It was only a matter of time until someone agreed.” She held up her hand when Daryl opened his mouth to protest. “I’m not saying that because I regret our choices. You were right to kill him, he was a threat, but we also can’t pretend that having a baby now is helping the greater good. That’s always been my stance on the matter, you know that.”

 

“Doesn’t give him the right to kill you.”

 

“No. But he thought it did.”

 

“If I may interject,” Hershel said, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t believe this is the time nor the place for a debate. Carol, you’ve just suffered a considerable trauma, and anymore stress will just harm you and the child, so why don’t we make this a calm space to recover from tonight’s events?”

 

Carol nodded, and Daryl cast his gaze to the floor, feeling shitty for being so riled up. That was the last thing she needed, but he dealt so much easier in anger than in fear. 

 

“The baby, though?” Daryl asked in a mumble, kicking at the cement with his socked foot, still stained in Carol’s blood. “She gonna be alright?”

 

“I haven’t felt him,” Carol said to Hershel then, in the same muttering tone as Daryl. “Not since he attacked me.”

 

Daryl felt a wave of nausea at that.

 

“Well, why don’t you lay back and we’ll have a listen?” Hershel said calmly. He gave a gentle push on Carol’s shoulder to get her to lay down on the bed.

 

“Listen to what?” Daryl asked.

 

At that, Hershel produced an old school stethoscope from his bag of medical supplies. It was something someone had grabbed during a run a few months back, and Daryl remembered helping inventory it and wondering how it would do them any good—a heart was either beating or it wasn’t, and it was pretty easy to tell one way or the other.

 

“Carol’s far enough along, we should be able to hear the baby’s heartbeat with this,” Hershel explained. “It won’t do it the justice of an actual monitor, but it’ll at least help us determine if the baby is alright.”

 

Daryl furrowed his brow and watched as Hershel put in the earpieces and pressed the stethoscope to Carol’s belly. The cell was completely silent for what felt like ten minutes, but was probably just a minute, tops. Hershel maneuvered the scope in different places, before pausing to listen. A small smile formed on his face, and Daryl couldn’t take it anymore.

 

“Well?” he asked simply. Hershel looked up at him and, keeping the scope in place, tugged the earpieces out and beckoned him over.

 

“Come hear for yourself.”

 

Daryl was suddenly shy. He hesitated before taking the few steps to the bed. He knelt on his knees and took the half of the stethoscope Hershel was offering. 

 

It took a moment for his hearing to adjust, but then he heard the faint, yet unmistakable sound of a heart beating. It wasn’t Carol’s—it was too small and too quick.  _ Thump thump thump thump thump _ , the rapid pulse raced in his ears. 

 

“Is it supposed to be so fast?” he asked, not yet willing to stop listening. Although his hearing was muffled by the scope, he heard Hershel say something in the affirmative, and that’s all he needed in order to feel relief. The baby had a strong, steady heartbeat—the surest sign of life if Daryl knew one.

 

He sat there for some time before he realized he was being greedy. He pulled out the earpieces, immediately missing the sound of his child’s heart, and held them out to Carol. She seemed unsure at first, but at Daryl’s insistence, she pushed herself up and took a listen.

 

She closed her eyes and let out a low hum, which seemed almost involuntary. Daryl understood it. When she opened her eyes, she wasn’t crying, but they shined a little brighter than normal.

 

Eventually, she removed the stethoscope from her ears and moved to give it back to Hershel, who waved it away.

 

“You two keep it. Then you can listen whenever you need a bit of reassurance.” 

 

Daryl ducked his head while Carol thanked him for the both of them.

 

“I’m sorry you had to go through that, but all things considered, you came out moderately unarmed,” Hershel said. “The head wound seemed worse than it was—head wounds tend to bleed quite a bit, but it should heal fine. It’ll bruise pretty nasty, but I doubt it’ll leave a bad scar. As for the baby, I would keep an eye out for any unusual bleeding, but right now I see no reason to worry. Your child seems perfectly healthy to me.”

 

After delivering his medical opinion, Hershel stood, gathered his things, and showed himself out with an encouragement for them both to get some rest.

 

And then they were alone.

 

The room was tense in Hershel’s absence, and Daryl couldn’t pinpoint why. Neither of them were at fault here, and Carol wouldn’t have allowed him to dwell on it even if they were. Carol was okay. The baby was okay. In the big picture, the events of the night were really just one more shitty thing to add to the list of shitty things that happened now that the world had gone to hell.

 

Daryl moved himself off his knees and sat cross-legged on the floor, elbow resting on the edge of the bed. Carol watched him warily, and Daryl guessed his own expression mirrored hers. It was though they’d forgotten how to act normal around each other; as though something had been broken or twisted, and they had to relearn how to maneuver it.

 

“I feel fine,” Carol said, just as Daryl asked, “You sure you okay?” They both paused, small, pathetic smiles that didn’t reach either of their eyes forming on their faces.

 

“He started moving again when you came over,” she told him. “When you were talking to Hershel, he must have heard your voice.” Daryl blushed, and couldn’t bring himself to say anything to that. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” Carol said after a few stressful beats of silence.

 

“You know I ain’t good at that,” Daryl mumbled.

 

“Try?” Carol asked, and she sounded so earnest that Daryl didn’t have a choice. He sighed deeply as he fumbled around his head, putting his thoughts into some semblance of an order.

 

“I understand now,” he said finally.

 

“Understand what?”

 

He turned his head to face her, and chewed on his lip, because that’s what Daryl did when he was uncomfortable, damnit. (He was so annoyed that Carol had made him aware of that tic of his.) 

 

“Karen and David,” he said. “I get it; what you did.”

 

Carol ran nervous fingers up and down her stomach swell, head ducked down.

 

“How do you mean?” she asked quietly.

 

They hadn’t discussed what happened in quarantine, not since that day Daryl returned from his run. He hadn’t seen the point—what was done was done—and Carol didn’t seem particularly keen on bringing it up either.

 

“They were a threat to your family,” Daryl said simply, thinking of the bullet lodged in Jim’s brain with no remorse. “You had to try. If it would protect us, then you had to try. I get that now.”

 

Carol was quiet a long, long while. Daryl let her have her silence. She picked at a cuticle with a crease between her brow. Finally, she looked to him and asked, “Is that what I am to you, Daryl? Your family?”

 

“What else would you be?” asked Daryl. She sounded almost disappointed, and he couldn’t fathom why.

 

“Nothin’,” she said, but Daryl found himself reaching out and gently lifting her chin to make her look at him—a gesture that was usually reversed.

 

“No, tell me. Whaddya mean?”

 

Carol licked her bottom lip absently, looking like how Daryl felt when he had to fit his thoughts into words, but didn’t know how.

 

“Are we family like you and Rick are family? You and Glenn, or Michonne, or whoever? Or is this something else?”

 

_ Oh _ , thought Daryl with a mild heart attack,  _ that’s  _ what she meant.

 

He couldn’t have replied if he wanted to; his tongue was pure cotton. Maybe it made him an ass, but he didn’t know what she expected. Was he meant to make some grand declaration? Didn’t she know who she was dealing with?

 

Maybe she did, because she didn’t let the silence linger too long before she spoke again. She said, “It’s okay, you know, if this just is what it is and isn’t something more.” Daryl thought of Millie Samson swinging on the swing he’d offered her, and the whiplash of her rejection, and how the concept of ‘something more’ was not an idea he knew how to fully conceptualize. She added, so very quietly, “It’s okay if it is, though, too.”

 

There was a man lying dead outside. They’d pulled him out into the sleet by his limpless arms, letting him spend the night awaiting the burn pile, Daryl’s bullet still lodged in his brain. He would have done it for any of them, kill someone, but when he pulled that trigger earlier that night, it was with a terror and rage he’d never before felt. He hadn’t even been able to tell the difference between his own shot and Jim’s until he saw for himself. Daryl, ever the observer, had been thrown.

 

The last time he felt that ungrounded was months ago, in that all-purpose store, when he’d yanked a slack-jawed walker off of Carol, and checked and rechecked her skin until he remembered how to breathe. 

 

There was correlation here. 

 

‘Something more’ was not elusive—it was staring him right in the face. Maybe since the day she said she was pregnant. Maybe since the bookstore. Hell, maybe even the day he saw a Cherokee rose growing wild in the bushes and picked it because he couldn’t stand it when she cried.

 

“What do you want me to say?” asked Daryl. “That I’m sweet on you? That I been sweet on you? Shit, Carol, you never been one to ask me questions you already know the answer to. Why start now?”

 

“Because,” she said. “You’re not the only one with scars.”

 

Fuck this, thought Daryl. He climbed up onto the bed, Carol shifting to make room for him without hesitation, and they both laid on their sides, facing one another in the dim glow of the candle that was lit on the desk. The shadows of the flames ghosted over them, reminiscent of their first night together. How far they’d come, and yet how stagnant at the same time.

 

“I thought you was shot. I thought he’d killed you. For just a second there, I thought you were gone.”

 

“I wasn’t,” she said. “I’m not. We’re alive, the both of us, another day at least.”

 

“Three of us,” Daryl corrected.

 

“The three of us,” she agreed.

 

“‘M sorry I don’t know how to say the shit I’m s’posed to say.” 

 

“You don’t have to say them, I understand,” she said, and the miraculous thing about that was that Daryl knew it was  _ true _ . She leaned forward and brushed a soft kiss over Daryl’s mouth, too fleeting for him to even properly respond. “I’m sweet on you, too,” she breathed. “Though maybe, if we’re gonna have significant moments like this, we can find a way to do them without putting me in near death situations?”

 

Daryl snorted.

 

“Deal,” he said, and kissed her for real.


	9. Chapter 9

Daryl didn’t wake until well into mid-morning, which was out of the ordinary. Usually he was up with the sun, sometimes before it, even when he didn’t have to be. His body didn’t like to be asleep—never had—as though there was a part of his brain that feared being vulnerable even in the face of exhaustion. Daryl couldn't have said when the last time he  _ wasn’t  _ tired was, so when he awoke, curled against Carol’s back, alert and content upon opening his eyes, he was momentarily bewildered.

 

His bewilderment over being well-rested was quickly overshadowed by a freight train of memories slamming into his mind at full speed, playing the chaos of the night prior like a time-lapsed slideshow.

 

He tried to break it down in order of events:

 

  * He gave Carol an orgasm. Nice.
  * He taught his daughter how to skin a deer and promptly got reprimanded for it.
  * He killed a man.
  * He might have gotten a girlfriend?



 

There was a lot to unpack there, but unfortunately, Carol began to stir against him, and he doubted her shrinking bladder was going to allow her to slip back into sleep and give him the time he needed for introspection.

 

She rolled onto her back and smiled a drowsy smile at him, the bandage on her forehead still in place, very lightly bled through, and a purple bruise surrounding it. “G’morning,” she said with a yawn. “Or, is it morning? I feel like I slept for hours. Probably missed all my chores.”

 

“Pro’ly exempt today, considerin’,” Daryl said, voice gravelly. 

 

“Hm, hell of a night, wasn’t it?” Carol asked, stretching her arms the best she could in the cramped space.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“We’ve had worse,” she said in a tone that told Daryl the way they were going to address last night’s trauma was by moving right on past it.

 

Respecting her unspoken wishes, Daryl said, “I pro’ly ain’t exempt though. Pro’ly should go make sure the place is still standing.” 

 

“Much warmer right here,” she said, shifting a little closer to Daryl. Was this allowed now? Could they do affectionate things in the daytime? The problem with being a ball of insecurity stuffed inside a grumpy redneck, was that implications, no matter how overt, were to be doubted until explicitly stated. They’d both admitted their feelings for each other, but was Daryl then just meant to extrapolate from the evidence that they were now a couple? Did Carol understand just how much he could not do that?

 

“Got work to do,” he said, not addressing his concerns at all. “And I’m guessin’ you gotta pee.”

 

Carol sighed.

 

“I do.”

 

“Do you want me to come—” Daryl started, cognizant of what went down last time she went to the bathroom alone, but she quickly said,

 

“No, Daryl, I'm a grown-up, I can go take a piss on my own. We can’t let what happened make us weak. It’s over, we have to just forget it.” 

 

“Alright,” Daryl said, not looking to pick a fight. Carol gave him a sound nod.

 

“Good,” she said. “Now scoot, because I really do need to pee.”

 

Daryl rolled out of bed and immediately missed it as a rush of cold air engulfed him. He grimaced and crossed his arms, trying to hold on to a little warmth.

 

“Go do your work,” Carol said, slipping into her boots. “I’ll check in with Hershel, and then probably head down to laundry in a bit, I can’t stand being holed up in here. I’ll come find you at dinner.” She then caught him entirely off guard by walking over to him, leaning up, and kissing him right smack dab on the mouth.

 

Daryl blinked several times in utter confusion.

 

“What was that for?” he asked. They weren’t about to have sex, they weren’t in the middle of an emotionally turbulent conversation, not to mention, the sun was out, so…?

 

“I dunno,” Carol shrugged. “Nothing? Kiss goodbye?”

 

“Goodbye?” Daryl repeated. “We’re both gonna still be in the prison all day.”

 

“Well, yeah, but not together.” Carol frowned. “I won’t do it again if you’d rather I—”

 

“No,” Daryl interrupted, still trying to make sense of everything. “No, I’m not...it was fine, I just don’t get... _ why _ ?” 

 

Carol looked as lost as Daryl felt.

 

“It’s just what people do, I guess?” she said, a furrow to her brow. “Just a sign of affection; a ‘see you later, have a nice day,’ sort of gesture?”

 

“I didn’t think people really did that sort of thing. I thought that was just movies and shit.” He certainly had never seen his parents give each other goodbye kisses. The thought alone was laughable.

 

“Maggie and Glenn do it all the time.”

 

“Well, yeah, but they’re like, horny kids.”

 

Carol snorted.

 

“You’ve not had a girlfriend for a while, have you?” she asked. Daryl felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped on him.

 

“I ain’t had a girlfriend ever,” he admitted, leaving Millie Samson out of it, because he figured that would make that statement more pathetic, not less. Carol didn’t seem phased.

 

“You do now, though. Right?” Her own insecurity bled through. Daryl found the strength to nod. She grinned. “Good. Then—” she leaned up and kissed Daryl again. “—I’m going to give you a goodbye kiss, and then I’m going to say goodbye, because if I don’t leave right now I am genuinely going to pee myself.”

 

Daryl, although drowning in a sea of a million unfamiliar emotions, smiled.

 

“Go,” he said sweetly. Carol gave a relieved sigh and ducked out of their cell.

 

_ Girlfriend. _

 

Daryl played with the word in his head. A bit juvenile, he thought, even Maggie and Glenn called each other ‘husband and wife,’ but he and Carol certainly weren’t at that point, and there didn’t seem to be an in-between word to use.

 

Girlfriend it was, then.

 

The cell was suddenly not quite as cold. In fact, Daryl could have sworn it felt kind of warm. 

 

—-

 

Daryl was walking back up from the burn pile, Jim’s final resting place, when Glenn jogged up to catch him.

 

“Hey, Daryl,” he called, getting his attention. Daryl grunted in acknowledgement. He wasn't in a very chatty mood, not that he usually was, but burning corpses wasn't exactly a task he looked forward to, and his body was that unpleasant in between state of being sweaty and cold at the same time, so he was extra non-personable. Glenn fell in stride with him, and said, “Come with me inside, I wanna run something by you.”

 

Daryl reluctantly followed Glenn into their cell block. Glenn led them to a table. They sat across from each other, and from his coat pocket, Glenn produced a wrinkled map. He spread it out on the table and pointed at a location he'd circled in red pen.

 

“I was talking to Janet, a Woodbury woman, and she happened to mention that she had her son at a birthing center about forty miles from here. She said it had been open a year before the outbreak, so it was all brand new equipment, and it was attached to a baby store and everything.”

 

Daryl regarded the map, following the roads leading to the circled destination.

 

“She think there'd be anything worth salvaging there?” he asked.

 

“She said it wasn't very well known. It's in a smaller town, and I guess most people around those parts usually just commuted to Atlanta if they wanted to avoid a hospital birth.”

 

“So a birthing center ain't a hospital?”

 

“The way Maggie is explained it to me is that it's got the natural feel of a home birth, but like, medical...things…? Like what a hospital would have. I don't know, I don't claim to be an expert on this stuff.”

 

“You and me both,” Daryl muttered, feeling out of his element. Still, though, if this birthing center was what it sounded like, then it could be a goldmine. “You think we could swing it? We haven't trekked these roads up here yet, we dunno what we might find.” Daryl trailed a finger down a stretch of highway that would spit them out to where the birthing center was located.

 

“I know, but this first chunk we know pretty well. If it were forty miles of completely uncharted territory, I'd say wait until we could get a bigger team together, but I think this is something you and I could do on our own.”

 

Daryl startled and looked up at Glenn.

 

“You want me to go?” he asked. Glenn frowned.

 

“I mean, I guess I just assumed, since…” he trailed off, but the implication was clear.

 

“That's the whole reason I can't,” Daryl said. It hadn't even been a full twelve hours since Daryl had found his now-girlfriend bound and gagged with a knife pointed at her, and now Glenn wanted him to leave her for a run that would take two days, minimum?

 

“Listen,” Glenn said, trying to level with him. “I'd take Michonne, but her ankle’s still healing from getting it twisted up in the gate last week, and Rick is good with a gun and quick on his feet, but you're the better strategist, and next to me, you're the best at runs. Besides, this isn't just for Carol. I bet you we can find stuff for Judith, and maybe stuff some of the younger kids can use.”

 

Daryl sighed, examining the route on the map. Glenn was right, at least twenty five miles worth of the ride would be along road they'd taken a hundred times, and any other time, Daryl’d be the first to volunteer to explore the new frontier, but he wasn't the guy who could just up and do that kind of thing anymore.

 

“I just don't know if I can risk it, man,” he said honestly. Glenn nodded in sympathy, but he hadn't given up.

 

“We lost Dr. S,” he reminded Daryl, gently but stern as well. “Hershel is great, and Bob can lend a hand too, but we aren't set up to deliver babies, nor really take care of them after the fact. Judith slept in a crate for the first few weeks of her life. We're supposed to be making this place a home. If we're here for the long-haul, you and Carol aren't going to be the only ones who'll need this stuff. Hell, Maggie and I have talked about it.”

 

That caught Daryl off guard. 

 

“Really?” he asked. While he'd never go back on his decision to keep the baby, he couldn't imagine getting someone pregnant  _ on purpose _ .

 

“Sure. She says we can't be afraid of living; that we gotta do more than just surviving.”

 

Daryl didn't reply to that. He chewed on the inside of his cheek and furrowed his brow a little.

 

“Ain't there anyone else? Michonne will be healed up quick enough.”

 

“We need to get this done as soon as possible. Michonne is gonna be out of commission another week at least, and Carol's getting closer and closer to giving birth every day.”

 

“She's got a few months yet.”

 

“It'll go by like that, and wouldn't you rest easier if we had what we needed now, instead of pulling it all together at the last minute.” At Daryl's sigh, Glenn added, “Look, I can take someone else, I can wait until Michonne can go, but at the end of the day, I just think it would go smoother with you and me. This isn't a job for a big team, and it isn't one for someone without experience, besides, you're gonna know best what you and Carol need.”

 

Glenn had excellent points, and Daryl knew it, and his intuition was telling him that he needed to get out there with him, but for once, he was trying to ignore it. He kept seeing the bruise on Carol's forehead, and the way she kissed him goodbye that morning, as though he was someone worth missing for even a couple hours.

 

“Why don't you talk to Carol about it, and get back to me?” Glenn asked. Daryl snorted.

 

“I ain't talking to Carol about this,” he said resolutely.

 

“Because she'll tell you to stay?”

 

“Because she'll tell me to go.” 

 

He could hear her now, saying, 'You have responsibilities, and you can't let fear make you weak.’ 

 

He wondered if she realized how much stronger a person she was than him.

 

He shook his head, and stared a hole into the table a good long moment, before looking back up at Glenn.

 

“I’ll go,” he said. “End of the week.”

 

Glenn nodded soundly.

 

“I’ll get everything ready.”

 

—-

 

Four days later, Daryl woke up at his normal ass-crack early time with a pit in his stomach. He was going on the run with Glenn in about an hour or so, and he was uncharacteristically nervous.

 

It was so stupid. He never got the jitters like this; always faced the new dangers with a straight face and steady hand. When had he become so soft?

 

The answer, of course, was laying in bed next to him, eyes closed, but he knew she was actually awake.

 

He’d taken it upon himself to take apart the bunk bed, and put the two mattresses side-by-side. Now that they were officially a ‘thing,’ it seemed silly to continue cramming themselves into that small space, especially since it was only going to get worse as Carol continued to grow wider still.

 

“Know you’re awake,” Daryl said, his voice, even in a whisper, sounding harsh in the silent cell.

 

“Wasn’t trying to pretend I wasn’t,” Carol countered, eyes still closed as she burrowed in closer to Daryl. He wrapped around her shoulders and sighed. “‘S’matter?” she mumbled sleepily against his chest.

 

“Gotta leave soon. Glenn wants to make the most outta the daylight.”

  
“Mm,” she hummed. “Well, as much as I’m going to miss you, please know I’m going to fully take advantage of having this much bed space to myself. God knows when the last time I was able to spread out on a mattress.” 

 

Daryl snorted.

 

“Good to know.”

 

Carol shifted then, lifting her head up to look at Daryl. Daryl looked back, and at the rush of affection and worry he felt just then, he could just hear Mere’s voice in the back of his head, asking him when he had misplaced his balls. 

 

“You can’t work yourself up,” she said gently. “I’m not gonna tell you everything is gonna be fine—neither of us can promise that—but I know you, and I trust Glenn, and I do believe you’ll be able to handle it if something goes wrong.”

 

“Not worried about me,” Daryl admitted, early morning grogginess to blame for his uncharacteristic openness. Carol smiled and kissed his forehead.

 

“Everything we do now is a risk, Daryl, but nothing has gone wrong with this pregnancy so far, and I doubt there’s anyone else looking to stab me in the bathroom.” Daryl flinched at that, ghosting a finger over the bruise on her temple that was becoming a collage of different colors. Carol took him by the wrist, stilling his hand, and then brought to her mouth to kiss his knuckles. “Whatever happens, to either of us, just know that I love you.”

 

And Daryl froze like a goddamn icicle, because  _ what _ ?

 

Carol didn’t seem remotely off-put or embarrassed. If anything, she seemed as though she anticipated this reaction—she was always two steps ahead of him. She pushed a strand of his hair back and he was too frozen to even register it.

 

“You don’t have to say it back, I’m not expecting you to,” she said in such a genuine tone that did nothing to melt him. “I just wanted you to know.”

 

Daryl didn’t think Carol quite understood the significance of what had just transpired.

 

He swallowed thickly, and forced himself to say, “Ain’t nobody’s ever said that to me before.”

 

Carol shrugged. “I figured. I mean, you said you’d never had a relationship before. It’s alright.”

 

She still wasn’t getting it.

 

“No,” he said. “I mean,  _ nobody’s  _ ever said that to me before. Ever.”

 

Carol blinked at him, face blank for a moment, until she propped herself up and regarded him carefully.

 

“You’re saying no one, in your entire life, has ever told you they loved you?” Very slowly, Daryl shook his head. “How’s that possible? What about your family? Your friends? Hell, Merle, at the very least?”

 

Daryl thought back to everyone he’d ever been remotely close to—it didn’t take him long. He’d had a grandma who was nice enough to him, but she’d been out of her mind with dementia pretty early on. He sure as hell never had the type of friends who would say that type of thing to him—they would have called it pussy shit. He genuinely couldn’t think of anyone.

 

“My mom, maybe?” he said, thinking hard. He tried picturing his mother’s face. He remembered she’d been blonde, and was probably pretty before the alcohol and abuse aged her. He couldn’t remember her voice, except that it was soft and a little raspy from all the cigarettes. Any words she’d ever had for him were gone, burned to ash like she was, so if she’d ever said she loved him, he had no memory of it. “Don’t remember much of her, she died when I was real young, but I s’pose it’s possible. She usually hit the bottle pretty hard, though, so I wouldn’t bank on her saying much of anything important most of the time.

 

“My daddy? Well, you know what kind of piece of shit he was. He ain’t cared about nobody in his whole life ‘cept himself. And Merle...I mean, Merle was Merle. He’d tell me, whenever we got into it, that no one would ever care about me ‘cept him, which may have been his way of sayin’ it, so I guess it’s sort of the same thing.”

 

“No,” Carol whispered. “It isn’t.” When Daryl met her eye again he was surprised to see she was tearing up.

 

“What?” he asked. “Hormones?”

 

“No, not this time.”

 

“What, then?”

 

As an answer, she shook her head and leaned over to kiss him thoroughly. 

 

“I love you so much,” she said against his mouth. The words caused a strange tightening in his chest. Why, he wondered, would a woman like her give him the time of day, let alone  _ love  _ him?

 

“You don’t gotta,” he mumbled. “Just ‘cause of the kid, ‘cause we’re together, you don’t gotta tell yourself you feel that way.”

 

“Oh, Daryl,” Carol sighed, sounding both exasperated and sad. “I’m not choosing to feel any sort of way. I’m not  _ training  _ myself to love you, I just do.”

 

Daryl couldn’t decipher any of this, nor could he find it in him to reciprocate the sentiment. He didn’t know what love felt like, so who was he to claim it? But he wasn’t worried about that part—he knew Carol meant it when she said she wasn’t expecting him to parrot back her words just because he thought he oughta.

 

He wasn’t sure how long he laid there, trying to soak in the concept of being loved. That particular well was so parched that it hardly knew what to do with it. Eventually, Carol shifted into a sitting position.

 

“You gotta get going,” she told him with a gentle touch to the arm. She was right, of course, but if he didn’t want to go before, he sure as hell didn’t want to now. Reading his mind, she added, “You already know we don’t have the luxury of letting our emotions stop us from doing what needs to be done. Go do your job, and do it knowing I love you, no matter the outcome.”

 

Daryl searched her face for a long while, before pulling her to him, almost roughly, and kissing her like it was the end of the world; like it had been the end of the world for some time, and the precariousness of it all was enough to drive one insane.

 

He forced himself to pull away.

 

It hurt like nothing ever had.

 

—-

 

“Are you scared to be a dad?” Glenn asked.

 

It was approximately eleven minutes into their drive. Daryl was impressed—he’d expected to be bombarded with personal questions much sooner.

 

“Don’t matter,” he muttered, hands tight on the steering wheel, eyes trained on the road. “It’s happening whether I’m scared or not.”

 

“Yeah, I know that, but like...” In his periphery, Glenn was making a sort of thoughtful hand gesture. “Totally terrifying world notwithstanding, what are the things you’re most freaked out about?”

 

He sounded so authentically concerned that Daryl grew suspicious. Squinting, he asked, “Is Maggie pregnant or somethin’?”

 

“No!” Glenn said immediately. “I mean, no, she’s not right now, but…”

 

“But?” Daryl prompted.

 

“I dunno, she thinks maybe we should start trying.”

 

Hmm, thought Daryl. As far as horrific car rides went, this wasn’t on the level of Michonne discussing her ability to achieve multiple orgasms while pregnant, but it certainly fell under the category of, “Things Daryl Would Rather Not Be Involved In.” 

 

But part of him felt for the poor kid. Albeit, a small part, but a part nonetheless. He shrugged.

 

“Dunno. It’s a big thing. I’m dealin’ with it.” Even he knew that answer was useless. “Why don’t you ask Hershel this shit? He's always givin’advice.” 

 

Glenn scoffed.

 

“‘Hey Hershel, your daughter wants me to impregnate her. Any thoughts on that?’” he mocked.

 

Yeah, fair.

 

“Rick, then?”

 

“I dunno. He just recently stopped acting so…” he searched for the kindest word.

 

“Batshit?” Daryl supplied.

 

“...Sure. But I don’t want to bombard him with questions if it’ll just remind him his wife is dead.”

 

Okay, also fair.

 

“So just leaves me, then?”

 

“Just leaves you.”

 

Daryl fought the impulse to say, “Sucks to suck.” Instead, with tremendous effort, he said, “‘Kay, what do you wanna know?” He was not promising he was going to actually answer any questions, but Glenn seemed to value his opinion, on something other than hunting or tracking, and that was worth enough to give it a shot.

 

(First Carol told him she loves him, and now Glenn wanted his advice. People needed to stop caring about him, it was throwing him off his groove.)

 

“There’s the obvious stuff, you know. ‘What if the prison falls, what if something goes wrong medically, what if we all die horrific and bloody deaths,’ etcetera. And the thing is, I get so preoccupied worrying about all that stuff, that I forget all about the normal things. Like, I barely even know how to change a diaper, do you?”

 

He did not.

 

“Carl can do it; can’t be that hard,” he mumbled, making a mental note to offer to change Asskicker as often as possible until he was perfect at it.

 

“And like, they can’t talk or anything, you just gotta figure out what they need. What if you can’t figure it out? I was hanging out with Judith the other day, and she cried for twenty minutes before I realized it was because she wanted to play with my plastic cup.”

 

“They’re just babies, man, there are only so many things they need.” He said this with the certainty of a much more confident man. Glenn was raising good points, and Daryl did not like it.

 

“Dude, babies are terrifying. Think about it—everything,  _ literally everything _ , in the world is new to them, and  _ you’re  _ responsible for teaching them how to be a human being. I was watching my sister change my nephew once, and my nephew was screaming and flailing his arms and feet, and you know what my sister told me? Apparently, newborns, when they’re not being held real tight, they have this reflex that makes them think they’re falling. My nephew was  _ screaming out of fear _ , and it happened  _ every  _ time he got a diaper or clothes change. Imagine putting a baby through that.”

 

Daryl was quickly regretting this conversation. He was starting to find that he regretted most conversations. He considered the possibility that maybe he should just stop talking to people in general.

 

“That can’t be a thing,” he said. “Wouldn’t like, evolution or some shit make a baby not so dumb to think it’s falling every time it’s being changed?”

 

“I swear to God, man, it’s science, look it up.”

 

“Yeah, okay, I’ll Google that right quick,” Daryl deadpanned.

 

“I meant in a book or something, obviously.”

 

“Uh huh,” Daryl grunted. He kept his usual facade of mildly grumpy apathy, but inside he may have been panicking a little.

 

He’d spent plenty of time worrying about the pregnancy—all the weird-as-fuck changes Carol’s body was constantly going through, and how he had no clue how to make that less awful for her—and by now he had more or less resigned himself to being a moderately useless copilot.

 

He’d also spent a good chunk of time fretting about the birth. From what he understood, birth was the worst thing ever in the best circumstances, and the fact that Carol was going to have to go through it in an abandoned prison, during the apocalypse, with an old veterinarian staring at her vagina, made him feel particularly guilty, but again, there was only so much he could do.

 

And sure, he’d obsessed over the obvious stuff that Glenn had detailed; tragedy, blood, death, etc. But the thing he spent the biggest chunk of time tormenting himself about for the past several months was the fear that he was a soulless piece of shit who would never be able to properly feel the amount of love towards his child that she deserved. That took up a lot of the ‘freaking out’ space in his brain, so there wasn’t much room for anything else. But now Glenn was making quite the case for a brand new worry: How the fuck did one take care of a baby? Like, logistically?

 

“When can babies start to, you know, do things?” Daryl asked suddenly, creasing his forehead in thought. 

 

“I have no idea. It all happens in stages. My sister would say things like, ‘oh, he’s hit his six month milestones!’ What does that mean? What are the milestones? What happens if they don’t hit them?”

 

“Is it stuff they just s’posed to learn on their own, or do you have to teach them, and if you don’t they turn out shitty?”

 

“See, this is what I’m saying, man! I got no idea! Maybe it's like  _ The Sims _ , and if you don’t teach them the right stuff they grow up all wrong and weird and sometimes evil.” 

 

“Like the what?”

 

“ _ The Sims. _ ”

 

“The fuck is  _ The Sims _ ?” 

 

“Never mind.”

 

Daryl “hmphed” and shook his head, but didn’t press the matter. There were a few beats of silence where the two men’s combined fear was palpable, until Daryl finally said,

 

“Shit, man, I know fuck all about babies.”

 

“Same,” Glenn said. In the corner of his eye, Daryl caught Glenn’s small, yet cheeky smile. “At least I’m the one who has to worry about it, yet. Have fun with all that, Daddy Dixon.”

 

Daryl considered crashing Glenn’s side of the car into a tree.

 

He decided against it.

 

But only just.

 

—-

 

They came to the block in the road a few miles from their destination, which was infuriating. Daryl had been beginning to let himself think they were going to reach the birth center without a hitch, but all that did was probably jinx them.

 

“Do you think we can clear it? There’s another route we could try, but it’s so roundabout that it’ll add another fifteen miles to the drive,” Glenn said.

 

Adding another several miles’ worth of unfamiliar road when they were already so close seemed counterintuitive. Daryl switched off the engine to conserve gas, and examined the blockage through the windshield. 

 

It was largely fallen brush and branches from the trees along the highway, mixed with a bit of miscellaneous debris, all of which was likely due to a nasty storm that had swept through at some point. The least difficult things to move would be the branches, Daryl figured. They were thick, heavy, and tangled together.

 

Still, it was worth a shot. He gestured his head for Glenn to follow, and the two of them stepped out of the car.

 

Daryl did an experimental tug on the biggest branch. It didn’t have much give. He sifted through twigs, his hands and arms getting scratched up, and took hold of a more promising, smaller branch and lifted it hard. It came undone from the rest of the mess, and the shifting made it all bang together in a crash that echoed on the deserted highway. As Daryl tossed the smaller branch asided, Glenn muttered, “Uhhh, Daryl…?

 

Daryl didn’t need him to elaborate—he could hear the low moaning just fine. He glanced over his shoulder to see a walker emerging from the woods up a ways ahead of them. A second followed close behind. Then a third.

 

“Keys are in the ignition,” Daryl said, snatching another branch and shoving it out of the way. A fourth walker emerged from the other side of the road. “Get in, turn the car on, and get ready to drive.”

 

“You can’t move this all yourself.”

 

“Do it.” There was no room for argument. He didn’t see so much as feel Glenn’s doubtful expression, but the kid did as he was told. Daryl picked up the pace, shoving debris around haphazardly, while monitoring the enclosing walkers.

 

All they needed was enough room to get the car through. The thing preventing it was that big branch at the bottom of the rest. Daryl figured that if he could just get a good grip on it, he’d be able to drag it far enough to make a space.

 

The walker closest to him got within grabbing distance, but before it could take hold of Daryl, he picked up a strong, pointed stick and stabbed the walker through its eyeball. He let it slump carelessly onto the asphalt as he continued to unbury the big branch. Behind him, the car idled. 

 

The other walkers continued to amble forward, closing in on him. He found two notches on the big branch, and took hold of them tight. He funnelled all his strength, lifting from his knees. He pulled the branch up just high enough for him to get some leverage, and he tugged with all his might. It began to move, inch by inch, the other walkers now close enough for him to smell their rotted flesh.

 

“Daryl, watch out!” Glenn called out through the car’s open window. Daryl glanced over his shoulder just in time to see an open mouth full of black teeth coming down on him.

 

He ducked just before the walker could take a chunk out of his neck, and used his right foot to trip it. Then, without loosening his grip on the tree branch, he slammed the heel of his boot into the walker’s mushy, decomposed skull. With a squelch, its face collapsed inward, and Daryl wasted no time pulling the branch the final stretch. It would be a squeeze, but they’d be able to get through.

 

He dropped the notches, letting the branch drop, and then tugged his knife from his belt and stabbed the three walkers now before him, one-by-one, in rapid succession. From the trees, he heard a quiet droning of groans, and knew the bodies slumped beside him weren’t the last of them. He made a run for the car, and before the door was even closed, he was yelling at Glenn to get a move on.

 

He fell back against his seat, breathing hard, his arms covered in small, red scratches, like he’d been battling a kitten and not a bunch of walkers. The bottoms of his jeans had bloody chunks clinging to the denim, and the knife now on his lap was dripping red.

 

“You okay?” Glenn ased. The passenger side of the car went into the grass as he maneuvered the vehicle around Daryl’s clearing, and walkers emerged from the trees just as he pulled back onto the road fully and hit the accelerator. Daryl grunted.

 

“‘M fine.”

 

“Should we try the other route on the way back?”

 

“Nah, not worth the gas. My guess is they’ll spread out enough to get us through. Might be a bit of a bitch, but it’s better the devil you know, anyways. We don’t know what’s up that other route.”

 

“Remember when a road trip was something you did with your friends for a long weekend, and the only reason you were ever in any sort of mortal danger was because the driver insisted on going twenty over the speed limit, because you were all young and stupid?” Glenn asked, sounding sort of defeated. 

 

“Never had the long weekend road trippin’ type of friends,” Daryl said honestly. “Closest I ever got was drivin’ with a black eye because I insisted on DDing for a bunch of methed out, drunk assholes who took it as a personal offense. You think your little school friends drove like shit? Man, try riding passenger to someone on speed.” 

 

“I imagined they’d  _ speed  _ a lot,” Glenn awkwardly joked. Daryl refused him even a pity laugh, and just gave him a deadpan expression.

 

“Just drive dumbass,” he mumbled, looking out his window into his rearview mirror, the carnage from just minutes prior already well out of view.

 

—-

 

“Well this is some hippie bullshit,” Daryl said almost immediately upon entering the birth center.

 

The shelves were full of salt lamps and long-dead houseplants. The room they’d walked in on had big, comfy looking chairs, with piles of books on the side tables with titles like,  _ Birthing Naturally: How to Know Your Own Body’s Strength _ , and,  _ Birth: The Ultimate Spiritual Journey _ . Beside the door, up against the wall, there was a rack of pamphlets. Daryl picked up one that read,  _ Umbilical Cord Burning Rituals _ , and he put it back next to another that said,  _ The Health Benefits of Placenta Consumption _ . He grimaced and picked that one up out of morbid curiosity.

 

“I think this is just a waiting area,” Glenn said. “I think that’s the reception desk up there, and the delivery rooms are through that door behind it.” He pointed, but Daryl was only half listening, leafing through the pamphlet and skimming.

 

“Carol wouldn’t eat her placenta, would she? Like, that’s not something most women do, right?” He wasn’t really aware that he was talking out loud until Glenn made a gagging sound.

 

“Surely not,” he said.

 

“This thing says it’s good for you, though. We don’t really got a lot of healthy food, maybe I should tell her to give it a try.”

 

“Daryl, can we please do what we came here for, and would you please stop reading that pamphlet?”

 

“It says it can help with milk production. That’d be good, right? Kid’s gotta eat.”

 

“Daryl.”

 

“Some people put it in a smoothie. Oh, but we ain’t got a way to blend a smoothie, do we?”

 

“I’m leaving,” Glenn said, adjusting the bag on his shoulder and heading towards the reception desk. Daryl frowned, stuffed the pamphlet in his front pocket, and followed close behind.

 

The two of them rummaged around the reception desk half-heartedly, expecting the real treasures to be through the adjacent door. There was a small bowl, however, still filled with little chocolate mints, and Daryl took the whole lot, thinking that no matter what they came home with, Carol would be most appreciative of that.

 

They pushed onwards, weapons drawn, but nothing stirred. Light from the windows highlighted the dust floating in the air, and the cobwebs hanging in the corners of the ceiling. They walked into a long hallway, with a handful of doors along it. Daryl and Glenn exchanged a look, and shrugged at one another. They both went for the door closest to them, as it was no better or worse than any of the others.

 

Inside was less like a yoga studio, as the waiting area had been, and a bit more like a hospital, but with an emphasis on comfort. It was kind of like if a hospital were also a hotel. There was a big bed, a giant whirlpool tub, and a big, red exercise ball. 

 

“Why’s that here?” Daryl whispered, nodding at the ball. “Is that a birth thing? Should I get Carol a big-ass ball?”

 

“Better than a pamphlet on eating placenta,” Glenn reasoned. “But let’s see what else we can find first.”

 

Daryl and Glenn began combing the room, throwing anything that seemed useful into their packs. By the time they’d cleared the room, they had several receiving blankets, a semi-circle pillow, (Daryl wasn’t sure if it was for nursing or hemorrhoids, but it looked comfortable), some rubber gloves, a better stethoscope, and a shitton of hand santizer.

 

They moved on, their footsteps echoing eerily down the silent stretch of hardwood floor. The next room was similar, but was probably for people with thicker wallets, because it was bigger, with more luxurious furniture, but as fancy as it was, it was clear something had happened there. Something bad.

 

First there was the smell. It was an unfortunately familiar smell—one of decomposition. The two men raised their weapons higher and waited, but no walkers moved out from the shadows. Only the smell of death attacked them.

 

Then there was the bed. It was queen-sized, with a big, thick mattress, and was covered in crusty, brownish blood; blood that had been there for some time, by the looks of it. It was blood that had soaked into the comforter, and dripped onto the floor. It was more blood—much more—than any one person could lose and still survive.

 

They took tentative steps forward, and once more fully inside, they could make out the feet of someone lying on the ground beside the bed. They approached the body, still anticipating it to lunge, but they quickly discovered it had already been taken care of, and not recently, judging by the extent of the decay.

 

It was the body of a woman in a nightgown, the bottom of it stained with the same brownish-red on the mattress. Streaks of flaking blood crusted the inside of her lifeless thighs. Her stomach protruded from her emaciated frame, but it looked soft, like whatever had stretched it out was no longer inside.

 

Very clearly, this woman had died in childbirth.

 

And she had died a second time by someone driving a thin, metal hook through her temple. That was easy enough to deduce—whoever had done it had left the weapon behind, still stuck in place.

 

Daryl tried hard not to think about Carol as he looked down at the dead woman, but he wasn’t doing very well at it.

 

“Do you hear that?” Glenn asked suddenly. It was a testament to how far in his own head Daryl was that he didn’t hear what Glenn was talking about until he had pointed it out.

 

It was a faint, tiny gurgling sound, unlike anything Daryl had ever heard. The two men followed the sound with their eyes, until they landed on the opposite side of the room, where a pretty, albeit dusty, bassinet sat along the wall.

 

Understanding seemed to hit them both at once, because the moment Daryl pieced it together, Glenn sharply said, “Don’t look.”

 

Daryl considered this command. He thought, what would Carol do? Well, that was easy to answer: Carol would do what needed to be done, no matter what. And although Daryl was not as strong as Carol—there were few in this world that were—Daryl was going to do this for her, because she would want him to. She didn’t want him to be weak. Weakness got you killed.

 

Glenn tried to stop him with a hand to the shoulder, but Daryl shrugged away and walked purposely towards the bassinet. He took a deep breath when he reached it, and then forced himself to look down.

 

He immediately regretted it, weakness be damned. 

 

It was a baby girl, or at least it used to be. She was dressed in a pink onesie that was still clean except for the thin layer of dust. She had been swaddled at some point, but had kicked out of it, and was now just surrounded by a soft, pink blanket pooling around her. She was wearing a pink bow around her head, where there were wisps of brown hair.

 

And she looked up at Daryl with clouded eyes, the flesh of her face drooping and rotting. She moved her toothless mouth open and shut, gurgling in her throat with what Daryl now understood to be an infant’s version of a walker’s growl. 

 

She couldn’t have been more than a few days old. Her hands moved aimlessly, her fingers clenched in fists. She kicked her legs. She moved like a living baby, but she wasn’t one. She had been alive in death for so much longer than she had ever been alive in life. 

 

And it was impossible for Daryl not to see his own child in her tragic travesty of a face. He couldn’t separate her robotic, instinctual movements from the healthy, animated ones he felt from his baby when he touched Carol’s stomach. But what if there was nothing  _ to  _ separate between them? What if this  _ was  _ his baby; a portrait of what she would eventually come to be? He saw before him his own flesh and blood reduced to this, and he wanted to vomit.

 

Daryl didn’t even realize he’d been looming over the bassinet, paralyzed, until Glenn put a reassuring hand on his forearm and urged him to turn away.

 

This time, he did. Carol might have been able to do it, but he wasn’t her. If this was strength, then he was a coward.

 

He flinched when he heard the squelch of Glenn’s knife piercing the baby’s skull, and he stalked out of the room without another word.


	10. Chapter 10

They finished looting the birth center, an uneasy silence having fallen between them. For once, Daryl actually wished Glenn would go on about some inane thing he didn't care about, just to give him somewhere else to put his mind. He'd seen the most gruesome things over the past few years, things beyond his imagination, but short of Sophia emerging from that barn with a wailing Carol collapsed in his arms, that infant walker had to be the worst thing he'd witnessed.

 

“I think the waiting area has a door that leads to the attached store,” Glenn said, finally breaking the silence. 

 

Daryl nodded gruffly. They hadn't amassed much yet. A lot of the things that were the most worthwhile were things that were too big to carry, but if the baby store was as untouched as the birth center, it was likely to be a treasure trove, both for him and Carol, but for Judith, and anyone else who decided to take the same risk. Glenn and Maggie, perhaps. 

 

Daryl was struck with an odd pang of some emotion or other—he didn't have a name for it, because when did he ever—when he thought about Judith, his kid, and Glenn and Maggie's hypothetical baby all growing up together. A next generation of sorts; one he sincerely hoped he'd have the opportunity to see.

 

They went back through the door they'd come from, and passed by the reception desk again. Right next to the desk, there was a plastic, rotating rack full of various congratulation cards. They both paused, eyeing it. There were clear delineations between where the cards for the newborn boys were, and where the ones for the girls were, waves of blues and greens going abruptly into shades of pinks and purples.

 

“What do you think it is?” Glenn asked, spinning the rack around slowly, skimming the cards. “Boy or girl?”

 

“She's a girl,” Daryl said. Glenn blinked in surprise at him.

 

“You know for certain?”

 

Yes, Daryl wanted to say, but that wasn't technically true. But between all the uncertainties that had occupied his mind over the past few months, for whatever reason, he never wavered on the sex of the baby, despite any empirical proof.

 

“Carol doesn't think so,” he muttered. They moved away from the cards and headed towards yet another door, the name, “Moms 'n Tots,” plastered above it on a white sign decorated in pink and blue baby foot and handprints.

 

“Ah,” said Glenn knowingly, which annoyed Daryl. “So you gonna be disappointed if you're wrong?”

 

He wanted to point out that he wasn't wrong, but didn't feel like arguing, so he just said, “What’d I be disappointed about? It don't matter either way,” and it really, truly didn't. The only type of baby he had a preference for was an alive one. 

 

“Hmm,” Glenn hummed skeptically, and Daryl rolled his eyes.

 

“Shut up and cover me while I open this door,” he said, and Glenn, to his credit, did as he was told.

 

Daryl held out his fingers, and used them to count down,  _ one, two, three _ . He swung the door open and the two men both startled. There was something on the other side. No, not a something,  _ someone _ , and the most surprising thing about them, was that they weren't dead.

 

“Don't come near me or I'll shoot,” said the woman they'd just come across.

 

She was a petite little black woman, with twists in her hair, and ratty but clean clothes a size or two too big hanging off her frame. She was crouched in a ball with her back against a shelf, and had a tiny pistol shaking in her trembling hands. Daryl had never seen someone less intimidating. He almost felt bad.

 

“You in here alone?” Daryl grunted. The woman just stared with her shaking gun still pointed at them.

 

“We're not here to hurt you, we just need to know if you're alone,” Glenn asked in a much softer tone. Daryl considered how two men bursting in on a small woman like her might appear; especially someone like him, who definitely looked the part of someone nasty, even if he wasn't. Still, Jim had seemed harmless, and he clearly hadn't been, so Daryl didn't lower his crossbow just yet. 

 

The woman regarded them, looking back and forth between the two of them with wide eyes. “Yes,” she whispered after a moment. “I'm alone. I've been alone. I've been alone for a very long time.”

 

Daryl believed her. She had an emptiness in her voice he couldn't ignore. He exchanged a sideways glance with Glenn and saw in his face that he believed her too.

 

“What's your name?” asked Glenn. When she hesitated, he added, “I'm Glenn. This is Daryl.”

 

“...Sarah,” she said like it was a secret.

 

“How many walkers have you killed?” asked Daryl.

 

“Is that what you call them? I've never heard them have a title before. I don't know how many I've killed. Not many. Only the ones I had to.”

 

“How many people have you killed?” asked Glenn.

 

Sarah ducked her head and said nothing for several seconds.

 

“One,” she said when she lifted her head back up.

 

“Why?” asked Daryl.

 

“Because I froze,” Sarah said. “Because I fucked up.”

 

It was good enough for Daryl. Who hadn't royally fucked up one way or another nowadays? And fucking up in this world was a whole other can of worms than how it used to be.

 

“You can come back with us, if you want; get you somewhere safer,” Daryl said. Sarah looked skeptical, and Daryl figured he couldn't blame her.

 

“We have a place,” Glenn explained. “It's about 45 miles from here. It's guarded. There's food, shelter, and other people, not just us; it's not glamorous, but you wouldn't be alone.”

 

Sarah bit her lower lip.

 

“I don't know if I remember how to be around other people,” she admitted. “You're the first people I've really talked to since…” she trailed off.

 

“There was a woman,” Daryl found himself saying. “Back in the birth center. She'd turned. There was a baby, too. Did you know them?”

 

Sarah's eyes widened and welled up with tears almost the second the words left Daryl's mouth. She covered her face with one hand and took a deep breath.

 

“Yes,” she said finally, letting her arms drop like weights, her pistol falling to the floor with a thunk. “She was a patient of mine.”

 

“Patient? You're a doctor?” asked Glenn, clearly trying and failing to keep the hope in his voice under wraps.

 

“No, I was a midwife,” Sarah said, and Daryl's heart skipped a beat.

 

“A midwife? So you deliver babies 'n shit?” he asked, failing the same way Glenn just had as the words tumbled out of him in a rush. Sarah ran a shaking hand across her forehead and sighed heavily.

 

“I used to,” she said. “Back before all this happened, I used to.”

 

“But you know how?” Daryl pressed. She narrowed her eyes at him.

 

“Does it matter? Who's fool enough to have a baby now, the world the way it is?”

 

He flushed, and Glenn started to speak for him, but Daryl interrupted—it was his to tell.

 

“My…” He hadn't said it aloud yet. “... girlfriend. She's pregnant. Six months, close to seven. And we ain't got no baby doctor back home.”

 

“We have a veterinarian,” Glenn supplied. “And an army medic—”

 

“Who's a drunk,” Daryl added.

 

“—but no one who specializes in birth. And the last baby born there...well, she made it, but the mother didn't.”

 

Sarah let herself move from her cowering ball, into to a defeated slump on her ass. She rested her arms on her knees, let her head fall back against the shelf behind her, and sighed again. She eyed them levelly.

 

“I don't want to help you,” she said simply.

 

Daryl momentarily felt dread, which he quickly suppressed with anger.

 

“‘Cause you're doing a whole lot of good bein’ hold up in here,” he spat.

 

“Fuck you,” Sarah was quick to fire right back. “You come breaking in here with weapons pointed at me and now want to drag me to god knows where so I can save some women I've never met, and for what? Morality? Human compassion? I went out to find food a few months ago, and saw a dead man hanged in a tree like an old time lynching, with a sign around his neck that said, 'the weak get fucked and the strong do the fucking.’ The world isn't moral anymore, so what's the point?”

 

Daryl could feel the opportunity slipping through his fingers. He looked to Glenn for help; he himself sure as hell didn't have the words to preach the worth of humanity. His motives were 100% selfish, and he knew it.

 

“What happened?” Glenn asked Sarah softly. “With the woman in there?” He nodded towards the birth center, and Sarah's whole body stiffened.

 

“It doesn't matter. She's dead. Her baby's dead. They have been for a long, long time.”

 

“But what happened?” Glenn pressed. “Were you with her? Are you the one who…” He made a crude mimicking of a stabbing motion, and Sarah flinched.

 

“I was,” she said quietly.

 

“She the one you said you killed?” asked Daryl.

 

“She is.”

 

Glenn squatted down to level himself with Sarah, and Daryl awkwardly followed suit. Glenn said, for a third time, “What happened, Sarah?”

 

Sarah regarded the both of them with such utter defeat that Daryl wondered if there was anything left of her to bring back. She raked her chipped and dirty nails over the knees of her ratty pants. 

 

“Meredith, the woman in there, she was alone with me here,” she began, “when the broadcasts started getting more serious. They were telling people mixed messages. 'Evacuate. Don’t leave the house. Hide. Run. Fight.’ The receptionist and the other midwife, they had left to be with their families. We had to make a decision for ourselves. Meredith wasn't in labor, she was just here for a check-up, but she was close, and we both figured, ‘hell, it seems like a shitstorm out there, so let's not risk it, and just hold up here until the baby comes.’

 

“She didn't have anyone else. Her boyfriend had up and left her when she got pregnant. Her parents wanted nothing to do with her. She was young and scared, and she only had me, so I couldn't leave her. I never even entertained the thought. For three days, we subsisted on vending machine snacks and leftovers in the staff fridge, until she finally went into labor.

 

“It was all normal. Nothing went wrong. It was a long labor, but it was her first baby, so that was expected. She was such a trooper. I know she was exhausted, not having anything of substance for days. She was scared, not just because of the birth, but because we didn't know what was happening outside. But she did amazing.

 

“And then she had the baby, and she cried once, this really pathetic little cry, and then just...stopped. I couldn't get her to take a breath, and I was so preoccupied trying to get this baby to breathe that I didn't notice the blood.

 

“Meredith was bleeding so much that it only took a minute before she was unconscious. She'd mumbled something about her daughter, and then she was out, and I was at the foot of her bed, watching her bleed out, and I did...nothing. I did absolutely nothing. I was frozen.

 

“I knew what to do, though. I knew what was wrong. I had pitocin all set up and ready to go in case of this very emergency. I  _ knew _ how to save her, but I had this suffocating newborn in my arms, and I had no one to help me, and so I just watched until she went completely pale; until her chest was as still as her daughter's. And just like that I had lost them both.

 

“I had no idea what to do, so I just cut the umbilical cord and cleaned off the baby. She was dead, but it felt like the thing to do, so I did it. I dressed her, laid her down in the bassinet, and when I turned back around, Meredith was getting out of bed.

 

“But it wasn't Meredith, obviously. I hadn't known what would happen—how could I have? Before the news broadcasts stopped, they'd said to go for the brain, so when she came at me, I took the only thing in reach, and just...killed her a second time.”

 

Sarah wiped the tears streaming from her face. It was clear she hadn't had anyone to tell this story to. Her shoulders began to shake as her tears turned into sobs, and through them she said,

 

“And the baby. It was only a little while after that she woke up, too. But I couldn't do it. I tried, I swear to God, I tried, but I couldn't. So I just closed the door, went in here, and I haven't gone back into that birth center since. Not once, in all this time, because I know what I left behind.”

 

She collapsed forward, bawling into her own lap. Daryl and Glenn just watched her, no words to offer, because what did one say to a story like that? They both had seen and done enough to know that there was nothing to cure this kind of grief. It was just a heaviness they all had to live with now, so neither one tried to lie to her with sentiments of, “It gets better.” It didn't, and it wouldn't.

 

“I took care of her,” Daryl said finally, because it was the only reprieve he could give her. “The little one, she ain't like that no more.”

 

Sarah lifted her head and looked him in the eye, face red, wet, and swollen.

 

“Thank you,” she said. “And I'm sorry it had to be you.”

 

Daryl shrugged, as if it wasn't still seeping through his soul like poison. 

 

“Come with us,” Glenn said. Sarah pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. Daryl watched her, knowing he needed her.

 

“Please?” he said. Simply. Desperately. Sarah dropped her hands. She did nothing for a long moment. Finally, she nodded her head.

 

“Okay,” she said.

 

—-

 

“You should get some sleep,” Daryl said quietly. He was walking the aisles, cognizant of Sarah watching him from behind. Night had fallen, and Glenn was curled up in the corner, passed out with his head resting on his lumpy pack.

 

“No offense, but I don't exactly feel comfortable sleeping with two unfamiliar men in here with me.”

 

“If we was those types of guys don't you think we'd have gotten to it already?” asked Daryl, turning to face her. Sarah smiled a humorless smile.

 

“The things out there? They're scary, but I understand them; know their motives. But men? Even before everything fell apart you all could be wolves in sheep's clothing. I'm much more afraid of you than I am of them.”

 

At least she was honest, thought Daryl, and he couldn't exactly blame her. He knew what she was talking about; had grown up with the type of men who would use the apocalypse—or any damn excuse, really—to take advantage of a woman. 

 

“Back at home, there's women and girls, all of ‘em strong as hell. I know better than to cross ‘em, even if I wanted to. Which I don't,” Daryl assured her.

 

“I'll wait to see for myself,” Sarah said. She was smart. Daryl was impressed with her sense of self-preservation, given how long she'd been alone. “Why aren't  _ you _ sleeping?”

 

The corner of Daryl's mouth quirked up. “Keepin’ an eye on you,” he said. “I told you, I got women back home that could kick my ass this way 'til Sunday. I ain't about to underestimate you.”

 

This time, Sarah's smile was genuine.

 

“You lookin’ for something specific?” she asked, nodding towards the shelf Daryl had been skimming. Daryl glanced at the assortment of bibs and pacifiers, and shrugged.

 

“Pro’ly should be, but I don't have the first clue about any of this stuff.”

 

“First kid?” Sarah asked knowingly. 

 

First  _ everything _ , Daryl wanted to say, but instead he just nodded. Sarah tsked her tongue, walked over to stand next to him, and examined the shelf herself. She picked out a package of pacifiers and held them out to him.

 

“Need these?” he asked, taking them.

 

“Life savers,” Sarah said. “Those are newborn size. Best to take a few different ones. Best to take most of these, actually, babies go through binkies like nobody's business. God knows where they all end up.”

 

“Did you have kids or did you just deliver 'em?” Daryl asked, having a hard time getting a read on her, which was annoying.

 

“Never had them,” she said. “But had a lot of nieces and nephews, and I was a postpartum doula before I became a midwife.”

 

“The fuck's a doula?” Daryl asked, and Sarah snorted.

 

“Kind of like a specialized birth partner. Or, in my case, I helped new moms and dads adjust to parenthood.”

 

“So I'm right up your alley, then, huh?”

 

“Mm, I guess, but I never got training on how to teach moms and dads how to parent when the world has ended.”

 

“Yeah, well, I'd pro'ly be a hot mess with or without the apocalypse.”

 

Sarah regarded him with something resembling fondness. She said, “Nervous fathers—that, at least, is something I'm used to.”

 

Daryl felt very seen, and he didn't like it. He bit a thumb nail, and asked evasively, “What else around here is worth takin’?”

 

“Hm,” Sarah said, thinking. “Is your girlfriend planning on breastfeeding?”

 

Daryl hadn't thought to ask. He assumed so, or would have if he'd bothered to think about it. Surely it made more sense, it was basically assured food for the kid, but maybe she had some reason why she couldn't? He made a note to ask, but, not wanting to sound like an asshole partner, he nodded at Sarah. “But we do got that little one who lost her mom, so if you got formula sittin’ around, we could use it,” he added.

 

“We'll grab a few manual breast pumps, then. Unless you somehow managed to power a freezer, she won't be able to keep the milk, but it's good to have on hand, if Baby won't latch, or she over-produces, you know.”

 

He did not know. He had no idea what she was talking about, but it all sounded kosher, so he nodded along.

 

“For the other baby, do you all use disposable diapers?” Sarah asked.

 

“We use whatever we can get our hands on.”

 

“We'll take cloth diapers, that way you can reuse them, so long as you have a way to wash them.” She looked Daryl up and down, and he could see her doubting they had any sort of laundry facility.

 

“We do,” he insisted. Sarah nodded, and, clearly in her element, began rattling off a million other things Daryl had either never heard of or would have never thought of.

 

“The fuck does a baby need a necklace for?” he asked when Sarah handed him a brownish, beaded necklace.

 

“It's made out of amber. It's supposed to help with teething.”

 

That sounded like hippie nonsense to Daryl, but then, what did he know? Not much, he was quickly realizing, as Sarah went on and on.

 

“I'm sorry, I'm probably overwhelming you,” she said eventually.

 

Yes, thought Daryl.

 

“No,” he said instead.

 

“I haven't had a chance to talk about this stuff in forever, and, as I'm sure you can tell, it's a bit of a passion of mine.”

 

Daryl, who was still trying to work out what the fuck a 'boppy’ was, merely shrugged.

 

“‘S’fine,” he told her. “Would rather have someone who knows too much about this stuff than someone who don't know enough.”

 

“I get it,” Sarah said. “Your girlfriend, does she have any medical problems I should know about? This her first baby, too?”

 

“No, it's her third, or I guess, second and a half? She lost the first baby, way back before I knew her. She had a shit husband who pushed her down some stairs, and she said she ended up giving birth at 22 weeks. The normal amount is 40, right?”

 

“Give or take,” Sarah agreed.

 

“She had another baby. She said she had—fuck, you're gonna make me try and remember how to pronounce it—pre’clampsia? That right?”

 

“It is. Has anyone been checking her blood pressure?”

 

“Yeah, I make sure she gets it checked every couple days. No problems so far, least that's what our veterinarian says.”

 

“Good, good. So she has a child with her already?” Daryl grimaced, and Sarah seemed to get the message. “There's a lot of trauma with her, then?” she said. Daryl shrugged.

 

“Ain't there with all of us?”

 

Something dark flashed over Sarah's face, and Daryl knew she was thinking about the baby she'd let turn. She took a breath and said, “Yes, but not all of us are giving birth. Labor and delivery is hard enough without the past creeping in. It'll be my job as her midwife, and your job as her partner, to keep things as positive as possible for her. Okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Daryl agreed. He regarded her. “Thank you,” he said. “For going all in on this when I know you don't want to.”

 

“It's not that I don't want to,” Sarah said. “I just...well, the past has a way of creeping in, right?” Daryl nodded. “But if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna try my damnedest to do my best. I have a lot of rights to wrong.”

 

For the first time in what felt like an eon, Daryl felt a little relief.

 

“Hey,” he said suddenly, reaching into his front pocket and pulling out a crumpled pamphlet. “What’re your thoughts on eating placenta?”

 

—-

 

“So it seriously is a real thing?” Glenn was asking as he pulled onto the road that led to the prison.

 

“Yeah, it's called the Moro reflex. It triggers a sort of startling in the brain when they're unsupported.”

 

“So the kid's gonna cry every time she gets changed because she thinks I'm letting her fall?” asked Daryl, turning in his seat to look back at Sarah. She was surrounded by a bunch of bags of baby things, and she had her pistol on her lap. She was much more relaxed than she had been the day prior.

 

“It's temporary. And it's a good thing! It means Baby's brain is working right.” 

 

“Don't sound like no good thing,” Daryl muttered, turning back to the front. The prison was just up ahead. He could see Carl and Beth getting the gate ready for them. Daryl was struck with sudden anticipation, and it took a moment for him to work out that it was because he was about to see Carol. He'd only been gone two days (more like a day and a half), and he already had been missing her something awful. Merle's voice said to him in the back of his mind, “You got it bad, little brother,” and Daryl couldn't help but agree.

 

“Never thought I'd be happy to be happy to be taken to prison,” Sarah mused from the backseat. She'd been less than impressed when they'd told her where they'd planted their roots.

 

“It grows on you,” Glenn said, waving at Carl and Beth as they let them through.

 

He parked the car, and Daryl was the first one out. Rick was walking towards them, and even though his brain told him that everyone would be looking a lot more concerned if anything was wrong, the first thing out of Daryl's mouth was, “Carol okay?”

 

“Hi to you, too,” Rick said. At Daryl's scowl, he laughed and said, “She's fine. She's down in laundry right now, I think. Who's your friend?” Rick nodded at Sarah, who was sliding out of the car nervously, shoulders hunched making her look even smaller than she was. Daryl, who had seen the much more animated side of Sarah, was beginning to think the meek appearance she put on was actually a safety strategy. Smart.

 

“This is Sarah,” Glenn said. “We met her at the birth center. She's a midwife.”

 

Rick exchanged a significant glance with Daryl, before turning to Sarah. 

 

“Hello there, Sarah” he said, friendly, but not  _ too _ friendly. “We're happy to have you. Glenn, you think you can take Sarah on a tour, and give her a rundown of all the rules? Maggie's down in the kitchens, if you want to start there.” Rick then gave a cheeky grin, and added, “I'd ask Daryl to do it, but I think there's somewhere else he's jonesin’ to be.”

 

Daryl frowned, but couldn't argue, because it was true. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, waiting for the pleasantries to be over so he could go find Carol.

 

“'Course,” Glenn said, mirroring Rick's grin. “Come on, Sarah, I'll go introduce you to my wife.” The two of them headed off.

 

“Looks like y'all got quite a haul,” Rick said, eyeing the car stuffed full.

 

“Mm,” Daryl agreed.

 

“We'll have to assign someone to come down and do inventory.”

 

“Mm,” Daryl agreed again, and Rick laughed.

 

“Go,” he said, dismissing him, and Daryl didn't even bother with a goodbye. It took all of his self-control not to run. He walked quickly through the prison, glad he didn't come across anyone who might have wanted to get chatty, until he got to the laundry room.

 

He hovered at the door. Carol was folding sheets someone had pulled off the clotheslines, and was stacking them into neat piles next to clothes from various residents. In between movements, her hand would press where her belly met her ribs. 

 

“She giving you trouble?” Daryl asked, and Carol startled.

 

“Jesus, Daryl,” she huffed, but her anger was temporary. She dropped the sheet in her hands carelessly, and went right up to him to pull him down into a kiss. Daryl, who had learned to appreciate goodbye kisses quite a lot, found that welcome home kisses were even better.

 

“Hey,” he said softly when they'd pulled apart, their foreheads pressed together.

 

“Hey yourself,” she said. She cupped his cheek, and he leaned into her touch like a cat getting its chin scratched. “How'd it go?”

 

“Real good,” Daryl told her, hands skimming across her belly. His suspicions were confirmed when he felt a few kicks under his palms right around Carol's ribs. 

 

“Got a lot of supplies?”

 

“Yeah, but that ain't even the best part. We found a woman there; got her to come back with us. Name's Sarah. She's a midwife.”

 

Carol took a step back and blinked at him.

 

“Seriously?” she asked. Daryl nodded. “That's incredible.”

 

“I know. She's real good about all this shit, really knows her stuff. Says she was even a postpartum doula before she became a midwife.”

 

Carol smiled. “Do you even know what a doula is, Daryl?”

 

“Pfft, 'course I do,” he said confidently, and kissed her again. 

 

“Well, good job. I figured you'd bring something for the baby, but I didn't expect it to be a person.”

 

“Me neither,” Daryl admitted. “She'll wanna look you over; ask you questions 'bout your other pregnancies and stuff.”

 

“Okay,” Carol agreed. “In the meantime, let me wash that shirt, it's filthy. Here.” From one of her stacks she pulled out one of his flannel shirts, which managed to look dirty even after having just being washed. 

 

Daryl shrugged out of the shirt he was wearing, and as he tugged on the fresh one, Carol said, “What the fuck?” He looked up and saw she'd pulled out the increasingly crumpled pamphlet out of his front pocket.

 

“Found that at the birth center,” he said. “Sarah says they ain't proved that there's health benefits, but the pamphlet says there might be. You should think about it.”

 

“Yeah, let's just put this right here,” Carol said, and she sat the pamphlet gently into the trash. Daryl frowned.

 

“You coulda at least read it,” he said. Carol poorly suppressed a grin.

 

“I love you,” she said, shaking her head, and Daryl was too busy blushing to respond.


	11. Chapter 11

“I am,” Carol said, sounding utterly defeated, “uncomfortable.”

 

Daryl knew this without her saying so. He'd been laying next to her in bed, listening and feeling her toss and turn in every imaginable position. Over the past four weeks, Carol's body had become more belly than anything else, and Daryl didn't even think to complain about the own sleep he was losing, because at least he wasn't constantly getting sucker punched in the ribs.

 

“Anything I can do?” he asked, hands sort of hovering in the awkward space between them—he wasn't sure if touching her would help, or if she'd bite his fingers off. Lately, it'd been hard to predict.

 

“Make him stop moving,” she grumbled, shifting again. “He has the goddamn hiccups.”

 

This gave Daryl pause.

 

“...Really?” he asked, knowing now probably wasn't the best time to study up on fetal development, but being interested all the same. His hand hovered a little closer, and Carol sighed.

 

“Go ahead,” she said flatly. Daryl spread his hand out over her stomach, and felt the unmistakable sensation of little hiccups coming from inside her, in addition to other movement that suggested the kid was shifting around just as much as her mom. Nothing about this entire thing ever got less weird, he thought.

 

“She’s never like this during the day,” Daryl mused.

 

“Fucking tell me about it,” Carol said. She was so grumpy and so tired, and Daryl felt like the biggest heap of garbage, not being able to help.

 

“Only a few more weeks, right?” he offered, pretending that was good and not horrifying. 

 

Winter had officially left, giving way to a few weeks of mild weather they were all enjoying for now, until Georgia's usual stifling heat decided to make its way back into town. And with the change in climate, came the dawning realization that he and Carol were going to, very soon, have a living, breathing child to take care of for the rest of their lives.

 

Did time always go this fast, Daryl wondered, or was this a new development?

 

Carol was getting regularly checked by Sarah. They still didn't have much by way of medical equipment, but just having someone who knew what she was doing gave Daryl a little, desperately needed, peace of mind. He didn't know how Carol felt—she never said. In fact, it was almost like she was falling back to her original state, from how she was at the beginning, when she hardly mentioned the baby at all.

 

“Assuming everything goes right,” Carol said. She always had to punctuate Daryl's hopeful statements with these caveats. It wasn't hard to figure out why: Daryl was afraid of what was going to happen once they had the baby, and Carol was afraid there wouldn't be a baby at all.

 

He'd realized this a few days prior, when they'd gotten into a minor argument about their living quarters. Daryl had wanted to start setting things up right away, now that they had a pack-n-play, as well as diapers, bibs, and other sundry items, but Carol had resisted hard. She wouldn't give him an answer as to why, until, after being pressed enough, she'd snapped at him, “I don't want to have to look at a baby bed I have no baby to put in.”

 

More and more, the closer they got to her due date, Daryl found himself thinking on Sarah's words—trauma and birth really  _ were _ difficult to untangle, and every time Carol indicated lack of faith, Daryl wanted to fight her on it, but Sarah said it was his job to support her, and so that's what he'd resolved to do.

 

“Want me to list all the different types of poisonous plants native to Georgia?” Daryl asked, deciding to redirect the conversation, and taking the risk of sliding in closer to her so that he was flush against her back. “You fell asleep real fast last time I tried to teach you that.”

 

Carol snorted. “You tried to teach me it after I'd been on double watch in the sun all day,” she argued.

 

“So's that a yes?” he asked.

 

“Yeah, go ahead, but whisper. I don't want him to hear you, or else he'll never settle down.”

 

“Least she won't get her arms all fucked up by somethin’ as simple to identify as poison oak.”

 

“That was  _ one _ time, and it was dark out.”

 

“Uh huh,” Daryl said, wrapping an arm around her middle. “So we already established you know poison oak, least now you do. Sumac's kinda fern like, and gots some pretty red on it, but it'll tear your shit up, so don't go pickin’ it. Bull nettle's got lil’ white blossoms on it, and is covered in spiky hairs, and it'll hurt like a bitch for at least a day…”

 

And Carol was fast asleep before he finished going through all the different types of nettles. He kissed her on the shoulder and was awash with a fondness he didn't yet dare to call love.

 

—-

 

What exactly was the deal with that whole love thing, anyhow? Well, if you asked Daryl, he'd say something along the lines of, “Good fuckin’ question,” because he couldn't make heads or tails of it to save his life.

 

It seemed so simple for Carol. She said the words to him multiple times a day, when he left in the mornings, before they went to bed at night, and sometimes just because. It never got less special for Daryl—he was, after all, making up decades of lost time—but it also never got less baffling, and even though he believed her when she said she wasn't concerned with him saying it back, he was starting to feel like an ass whenever he responded to her with an awkward nod or lower lip chew.

 

He needed advice, which was terrible, because to receive advice, he'd have to tell someone about his situation, and he would almost rather french kiss a walker than do anything of the sort.

 

But he was desperate.

 

Everyone knew about him and Carol, that they were officially a  _ thing _ , although no one seemed that shocked about it. The only real comment on the subject that Daryl had received was from Glenn, shortly after their run together. He'd smirked at Daryl and said, “So you told Sarah that Carol's your girlfriend. That what you're calling her now? Thought you said you ‘weren't like that?’” In lieu of a response, Daryl had pushed him into a pile of rotting walker corpses, and Glenn hadn't mentioned it since.

 

Daryl didn't know who to go to. Obviously not Glenn. Rick? He'd rather die. Both Tyrese and Michonne's partners were dead, so that probably wouldn't be the most sympathetic thing to ask them about. Hershel gave good advice, but he also talked like a wise, old wizard and it kind of weirded Daryl out. Beth had gone through a few boyfriends, but they were dead too, plus she was barely eighteen and it seemed a bit creepy to ask for relationship advice from a kid.

 

This conundrum is how Daryl found himself fidgeting with a loose button on his shirt while hovering by the garden where Maggie was planting the spring crops.

 

He stood there silently for what was definitely too long. He was having a mental debate with himself over whether or not he wanted to go through with this. He watched Maggie from behind as she dug small holes in the soil to drop seeds into with the practiced ease of a farmer’s daughter. He was just about to turn back around like a coward and go hide in shame for a while, when Maggie said, “You just gonna stand there all day, or are you gonna tell me what you came here for?” 

 

Daryl went scarlet, feeling like a kid getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He swallowed, opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Maggie stood and faced him, wiping dirt off on her pants. She crossed up her arms and quirked an eyebrow.

 

“Somethin’ tells me you ain’t here to ask about watch shift, so what gives?” she asked. Daryl kicked the ground a couple times and shrugged. “Do you think I’m mad about you throwing Glenn in that pile of guts? Because sure, he smelled like the bottom dregs of a New York City sewer, but I knew he probably deserved it.”

 

“No, not that,” Daryl said. 

 

“What then?”

 

“...Never mind,” he muttered, but just before he bolted, Maggie held up a hand for him to wait.

 

“No, no, obviously it’s somethin’ important, you just don’t want to say. Is everything okay? Is Carol?”

 

“She’s fine,” Daryl said to his feet.

 

“Then...?”

 

Daryl bit the inside of his cheek. “Wanted to ask you…” he trailed off.

 

“Ask me what?”

 

Daryl couldn’t decide if this was better or worse than telling Carol he’d have sex with her. Probably worse, he reasoned, since at least that conversation eventually got him laid, even if he did spend that entire morning in a tree.

 

“You and Glenn,” he said. “How’d you know?”

 

Maggie took a moment to piece together Daryl’s vague question. She said, “How’d I know I wanted to be with him?”

 

“Nah,” Daryl said, digging his nails into his palms.  “I mean,  _ after  _ that, how’d you know?”

 

“How’d I know...that I loved him? Daryl, are you asking me how I knew I was in love?” Daryl’s silence was the answer, and it said a lot about Maggie’s character that she didn’t burst into laughter right then and there. In fact, he’d been expecting ridicule so much that he actually hazarded a glance up at her, and was surprised to find her smiling at him, not mean, no taunting, but kindly. 

 

“I know it’s a stupid-ass question, you don’t gotta answer it,” Daryl mumbled, peeking at her through his shaggy hair. 

 

“It’s not stupid Daryl,” and she said it like she believed it; like it made all the sense in the world, him asking her that. “How’d I know I was in love, huh? Hmm...Okay. You know that feelin’ you get when you’ve got it bad for someone? Like, straight up, head over heels, can’t get them off your mind, butterflies in your stomach, every love song on the radio reminds you of them; you’re obsessed as all get out and it’s both wonderful and terrible at the same time?”

 

Not really, thought Daryl, but he nodded anyway. 

 

“Well, that ain’t love. That’s a crush, or maybe lust, and maybe it can become love, but it’s not yet. Love is them always bein’ on your mind, but not necessarily at the forefront; like a little buzz in the back of your brain that’s there all the time, because they’re always with you, but it’s not overwhelmin’. It’s missin’ them when you’re apart, but it feels more hollow than crazy, like a piece of you is somewhere else, and the only way you feel all the way whole again is when you’re back together. It’s being willing to put everything on the line for them.

 

“And I think the biggest thing love is, is it makes you better. The person you love makes you want to be the best version of yourself that you can, not just for them, because they deserve it, but for yourself, too, because they make you feel like  _ you  _ deserve it, even when you don’t believe it.”

 

“That how Glenn makes you feel?”

 

Maggie smiled. “Even when he’s covered in walker slime because he pissed off some redneck.” Daryl granted her a quick quirk of his lip at that. “Does that answer your question, Daryl?”

 

Daryl examined the grooves in his palms left behind by his clenched fingers, and nodded.

 

“Yeah,” he mumbled.

 

“The answer is yes, by the way,” Maggie said then. “To whether or not that’s what you feel for her? It’s yes. And she knows it. Anyone with eyes knows it.” 

 

After a moment, Daryl admitted, “I know,” because he did. Of  _ course  _ he did. “She should hear it though.” 

 

Maggie nodded.

 

“Then go tell her,” she said.

 

—-

 

“Daryl, the last time you stared at me like that, you offered to have sex with me if my pregnancy hormones made me too horny, and then I didn’t see you again for over twelve hours. What gives?” 

 

Carol was sitting on the mattress, her back up against the wall, and an open book balanced on her stomach like it were a shelf. She had bags under her eyes from not being able to sleep more than a couple hours at a time. She had a handful of pimples on her chin, her hormones making her breakout like a teenager. The clothes she was wearing were worn-out and drab. Her hair was not quite Daryl levels of oily, but it'd been a few days since it had seen a bottle of shampoo. 

 

And Daryl thought she was the most beautiful thing in the whole wide, stupid-as-fuck, world.

 

“You're really pretty,” he told her from his spot on the floor across the cell, the bolt he was sharpening long forgotten on his lap. Carol blinked at him in surprise.

 

“What?” she asked. You would have thought Daryl had come sweeping in with a bouquet of flowers and chocolates and embraced her while waxing poetic about her beauty, judging by how baffled and flattered she sounded.

 

“You're really pretty,” Daryl said. “And I don't get why I can tell you that.” 

 

Carol frowned and began to question what he meant, but for once, Daryl actually had something to ramble about, and so ramble he did.

 

“I don't mean it's easy to say, exactly, but I  _ can _ . I was just sittin’ here, lookin’ at you, and thinkin’ about you, and feelin’ some type of way, 'cause you got this  _ face _ that's all soft and nice and shit, and your body is all kinds of different now 'cause of the kid, and that's so crazy, you know, that you can grow a goddamn  _ person _ inside you and manage to look damn good doing it, and I just thought, ‘that’s one pretty-ass woman,’ and so I just said it. Just now, I said it, and I wasn't afraid to. It's weird 'cause I usually don't say that type of shit, but it ain't scary.”

 

He waited for Carol to interject, give him a bit of a reprieve, but she seemed to sense that he hadn't yet made his point, and so she just waited patiently until Daryl took a deep breath.

 

“I wanna not be afraid to say the other stuff,” he admitted, albeit in his usual mumble, but Carol didn't seem to mind.

 

“You mean about saying, 'I love you,’ right?” she asked, and Daryl nodded. “What about it scares you?”

 

Oh, that was an uncomfortable question, Daryl thought, grimacing. He chewed on his bottom lip, and debated on whether or not he should tell her the truth, or tell her nothing, because he wasn't about to lie.

 

“'Cause,” he said finally. “If I say it and then you come to your senses and change your mind, then I've lost somethin’. But if I never say it, and you take it all back, then I can pretend I never lost nothin’, 'cause if I never said it, it never was true.”

 

That was the singular most vulnerable thing Daryl had ever told anyone, and the impulse to run was so strong he had to bring his knees to his chest and physically hold them tight to keep from jumping to his feet. Carol had sat her book off to the side, and turned to face him more fully.

 

“It's not easy for me either, Daryl,” she said. “Love, before you, was interlaced with pain and shame. I convinced myself that abuse was a side effect of love; that that's just how it worked. It took me a long time to trust you, not because of anything you did, but because of how he painted the world to look like to me. Admitting to myself that I loved you was like pulling teeth, because I fought it so hard, and telling you was even harder, so when I tell you that I don't expect you to say it, I really and truly mean it. I  _ know _ , Daryl, I don't need words.”

 

“Maybe you don't,” Daryl mumbled. “But what about her?” He nodded at her belly.

 

“He'll know, too, Daryl, the same way I do. He'll learn to understand the things you don't say,” Carol said, but Daryl was shaking his head.

 

“No, it can't be like that,” he said firmly. “I don't want her to have to wonder. I don't want her to be like me. You deserve to hear it, but maybe you don't need to, but she does, and I gotta start somewhere, right? Gotta stop pissing my pants over fuckin’ ghosts that make me scared to tell you the most obvious fuckin’ thing in the goddamn world.”

 

Carol regarded him for a long, long moment. Finally, she just shrugged.

 

“Then tell me,” she said.

 

Daryl's throat was dry. He tapped his feet on the ground a couple times, before pushing himself up to stand. He went over to their bed and laid down, and motioned for her to do the same. She settled in, back against his chest, as he wrapped his arms around her.

 

He pressed his lips against the skin of her neck just behind her jawline. He marveled at the way she leaned into his touch, rather than recoiled. Holding her didn't feel like holding someone else—it felt like how Maggie said; like she was just an extension of himself, and vice versa.

 

In the smallest, most helpless voice, he whispered into her ear,

 

“I love you.”

 

It was like popping a balloon. All the anxiety and doubt he had pent up inside of himself blew out in a rush. He buried his face in her hair, and listened to her echo his words back at him. She loved him. He loved her. They were in love.

 

Never, not once, had Daryl ever expected to have anything close to this.

 

And not much later, when he pushed inside of her, sweeter and gentler than they'd ever done it before, it felt different, closer.

 

Maybe, he guessed later, it felt like coming home.


	12. Chapter 12

“Hey, darlin’,” Daryl asked tentatively, hovering just outside the cell with an air of hesitation, “whatcha doin’ there?”

 

“What’s it look like I’m doing?” Carol asked, distracted. Well, what it looked like to Daryl was an incredibly pregnant woman trying fruitlessly to scrub years worth of grime off a cement wall with nothing but a rag and a bucket of cold water. “And I swear to god, if you track one speck of mud in here with those disgusting boots, I’ll shoot you with your own damn arrow.” 

 

Okay, so this was the type of day it was going to be, Daryl accepted, stepping out of his boots and pushing them away before daring to step inside. He’d just gotten back from a morning hunt—nothing but a few hares today—and Carol hadn’t been awake yet, so he was a bit surprised to come back to this...whatever  _ this  _ was.

 

He glanced around the room, eyebrows furrowed. All of their clothes had been folded and organized by type and color (light beige to dark beige, essentially), the floor had been diligently swept, and the bed was even made. And now Carol was scrubbing walls. 

 

“How long you been at this?” Daryl asked, loitering, because he felt like if he sat down or moved the wrong way, he’d get snapped at for disrupting the sheets or tracking dirt or just in general leaving traces of the outside world on her meticulous work. 

 

“Dunno,” Carol said, wringing her rag out into her bucket. “How long have you been gone?”

 

“‘Bout four hours.”

 

“About four hours, then. I woke up right after you left and noticed the floor was disgusting, and thought I might as well clean the rest of this place while I was at it. Can you go dump this somewhere and get me some fresh water, it’s like I’m just wiping filth with more filth at this point.”

 

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Daryl said, going over and taking the bucket from her. Some of the water sloshed out of the side, and Carol huffed. “Sorry,” he mumbled, and quickly added, “I got it,” when she tried to move her awkward body into a squat so she could wipe it up. He caught her by the elbow and pulled her back up. “Don’t go throwin’ your back out over a bit of dirty water.”

 

“I don’t want it to just sit there.”

 

“It won’t, but it ain’t gonna be any cleaner if you use that rag. It’s practically stained black. Why don’t you just rest for a bit, and I’ll get somethin’ else to clean with and help you myself?” He still had exactly no clue what was going on, but that seemed to be the right thing to say, because she gave a long sigh of relief and nodded. He looked her over—she was practically dead on her feet. He figured if she even blinked too long she would fall right to sleep.

 

“Okay, thank you,” she said. She yawned wide, and Daryl pushed her gently towards the bed. She seemed reluctant to mess up the perfect hospital corners she’d managed, but at Daryl’s insistence, she climbed in and laid on her side, looking past Daryl at the wall behind him. She frowned and asked, “Do you think that wall is too depressing?”

 

“Sorry?” Daryl asked, glancing over his shoulder and squinting at the, what he considered to be innocuous, wall.

 

“I think we need something to put up there. Some art maybe. This room is all shades of grey, there’s no color.”

 

“I didn’t think we cared one way or the other.” They’d never made any effort to make their room anything but a place to store their things and lay their heads down at night.

 

“I think we’ve been living with the fear of impermanence; that we’ll have to up and leave just like we had to before, but that’s no place to grow up in. We need to put that aside, the baby needs color.”

 

“Glenn was telling me that his sister said newborn babies don’t see much color ‘til they’re older.”

 

“Oh,” Carol said indignantly. “If  _ Glenn  _ said so then I guess I’ll just go fuck myself.” 

 

“No, that’s not—” He backtracked, got stuck, and tried again. “Michonne’s probably got some shit stored up somewhere. She’s always bringin’ back paintings ‘n stuff, her cell is full of ‘em. Want me to go ask her?”

 

“That’d be sweet of you,” Carol said, much nicer this time, and as riled up as she had been just moments before, she now had her head burrowed in her pillow, and looked seconds away from sleep. “Just don’t get any of those weird cat sculptures.”

 

“‘Kay, I’ll get some fresh water and see if I can’t find Michonne.”

 

“Go shower, too,” she mumbled, shutting her eyes. “You’re not to come back until you don’t got a speck of dirt anywhere and got some decent clothes on, or else I’ll pin you down and scrub you myself. I just washed these sheets”

 

“Aight,” Daryl said, grinning a little as each subsequent word out of her mouth came out a little groggier. “Love you.” He’d taken to saying that to her at every opportunity, as though a dam had broken and he had a flood of affection to pour on her. It was probably a bit overwhelming, but he found it couldn’t be helped. She could hardly go to the bathroom without Daryl giving her a kiss and a ‘love you,’ and she went to the bathroom a  _ lot _ .

 

“Mrfph,” Carol said. Daryl figured that was close enough to a reciprocation. He bent over to kiss her on the temple, and then left the cell he’d just arrived in, in search of some art.

 

—-

 

“Michonne, I need some of those weird-ass paintings you got, because Carol’s lost her mind.” 

 

Michonne looked up from the boot she was re-lacing and frowned at him.

 

“Come again?” she asked.

 

“I dunno, I came back from huntin’ and Carol was cleanin’ everything in our room down to the last speck of dust, and then started goin’ on about how the walls are too depressin’ and we need color for the baby so she doesn’t grow up in a state of impermanence. Or somethin’.”

 

“Ah,” Michonne said knowingly. “She’s nesting.”

 

“She ain’t no bird,” Daryl said, and Michonne laughed.

 

“Nesting—it’s something that happens in late-stage pregnancy. Women basically go batshit crazy, cleaning, reorganizing, and then cleaning again, getting everything ready for the baby. Half the time they don’t even realize they’re doing it. I rearranged my furniture six times before my boyfriend pointed out I had just put everything back where it had been originally and then told me I was going to go into labor if I kept pushing the couch around.”

 

“Why is nothin’ about pregnancy normal?” Daryl muttered, more to himself than to Michonne, but she gave him a sympathetic smile anyway. 

 

“What kind of art did she want? I’ve gathered a decent selection. Carl gives me crap about it, but I knew it’d come in handy.” 

 

Daryl shrugged. “Beats me. Color, she said, somethin’ with color. Makes no difference to me, just long as it’s not something with creepy eyes. My nana had this portrait of this dude and the eyes used to follow you everywhere. Scared the shit out of me.”

 

“What, you mean to tell me you’re not a connoisseur of fine arts, Mr. Dixon?” 

 

“Yeah, that’s me,” Daryl said with a snort. “Spent my summers in New York City at the MoMO.”

 

“Do you mean MoMA?”

 

“You tell me.”

 

“Right, so we’ve established you have no idea what you’re doing.”

 

“That pro’ly could be said about most everything lately.”

 

“Well, let’s focus on the art first. Come with me, I’ll show you what I got.”

 

Michonne picked up her boots and got to her feet. Daryl followed her down the hall to her cell, that was the polar opposite of his and Carol’s. She had practical things—all weapons and gear easily accessible—but she also had random sculptures of various sizes that she’d gotten anywhere she could get her hands on them, and there were paintings leaning against every wall, some of them of recognizable images, and others that just looked to Daryl like someone splattered paint on a canvas with no purpose. He didn’t see the appeal, but then, the only thing he ever decorated his bedroom with as a child was a picture of his mom with a bent corner that he scotch taped to the wall, and the only trophy he ever won, for a hunting competition in the small town just over from his.

 

Michonne gathered up a pile of paintings she’d amassed, and spread them out on the lower bunk, eyeing them with a set jaw. More than once, someone had asked Daryl how on earth he saw the things he did in the ground when tracking, and he always rolled his eyes, because it was  _ obvious _ , but now he understood the feeling. Whatever Michonne saw in the art pieces, he was blind to it. She was their warrior, wielding a sword with expert precision, but what it would have been like to have known her in her previous life? It was always startling when ghosts of the past flashed by.

 

“Okay, take this one for sure,” she said, handing him a medium sized canvas of nothing discernible, but there was color, and a lot of it. “And this one, too, but let me take it out of the frame, she’ll probably have a fit about you bringing in broken glass.” She slid a piece of paper out of a cracked frame. “It’s mixed media,” she explained, as though that meant something to Daryl. To him it just looked like one of those collages they’d make in elementary school using magazine cutouts, only this one was slightly better. He took it anyway. She continued this way, until Daryl had a hefty stack of artwork in his arms.

 

“Room’s not that big, do we really need all this?” he asked.

 

“No, but I guarantee you she will veto at least half of those on sight, and then second guess her selections and go back and want some of the ones she got rid of to begin with.”

 

“Wouldn’t it save us all a lotta time to just bring in one or two so she don’t have to do any of that?”

 

“No, because then she’ll be upset that she has to make do with what you brought, and she’ll get resentful because you were nice enough to bring her what she asked for, but she doesn’t  _ like  _ it, and she’ll probably cry.” At Daryl’s long-suffering expression, Michonne laughed, and added, “Only a couple more weeks, right?” 

 

“Lookin’ forward to her bein’ normal Carol again,” he agreed. Michonne regarded him carefully.

 

“You prepared?” she asked.

 

“Hell no,” Daryl said. “But don’t got much choice, do I, kid is gonna need me either way.”

 

“Oh, no, of course you’re not prepared for the baby,” she said dismissively. “No one ever is, but I meant are you prepared for her to give birth?”

 

Daryl chewed his lower lip. The truth was he had been avoiding thinking about it. Sarah and Carol were working out most of the logistics—Sarah had taken it upon herself to set up an unused warden’s office as a birthing room—and Daryl figured his job was mostly to just nod along and agree with whatever they came up with. But the actual act of Carol giving birth? Yeah, that was much too terrifying to give more than a moment’s thought at a time. He gave Michonne a shrug.

 

“Do you know what to expect?” she asked. Another shrug. “Have you talked to Sarah about it?”

 

“Not really. I figure she knows what to do, and she ain’t never had a baby herself, so there’s not much she can tell me about experiencing it.” 

 

“Carol has, though, have you asked her what it was like for her before?”

 

“No,” he said resolutely. “Didn’t want to bring it up.”

 

“Well, what about me? You can ask me.”

 

Daryl cast his eyes down. He hadn’t asked anything of Michonne—only accepted what she gave willingly on her own accord—for the same reason he didn’t bring up Sophia to Carol unless she said something first. 

 

“Don’t want to make you talk about it,” he said to the floor. He hazarded a glance up at her, and she gave a thin-lipped smile.

 

“I can’t talk about...the after. But I can talk about the pregnancy. I can talk about the birth. Those are safe.”

 

Daryl nodded. “Then what should I know?” he asked finally. She twisted her mouth. She moved the remaining pictures off to the side, clearing off a space on the bed, and gestured for Daryl to sit. He hesitated, and then, putting his own art pieces down against the wall, took a seat. Michonne settled in beside him.

 

“Birth is one of the most miraculous things imaginable. It’s beautiful, and incredible, and emotional,” she started. “It’s also fucking terrible.”

 

Great, thought Daryl.

 

“No matter what you do, you’re not going to be able to understand it entirely, but you have to at least try and see it from her point of view. She’s going to be in unimaginable pain, all while having no sense of body autonomy, while there are other people’s hands and eyes all over her in her most vulnerable state. There’s gonna be tears, blood, piss, and shit, and the only way to get it to stop is to go through it. She won’t have any pain meds; your job is to help her to trust the strength of her own body. Women have been giving birth naturally longer than there have been meds to dampen the pain.”

 

“You do it that way? No meds?”

 

“Oh no, fuck that,” Michonne said. “I told them to load me up with whatever they could find.” Daryl sighed. “To put it in perspective, do you know how they administer an epidural?”

 

“I barely even know what that is,” Daryl admitted.

 

“It’s a procedure that numbs you from the waist down, and to give it to you, they take a needle that’s about this long—” she held her index fingers a somewhat terrifying length apart, “—and they have you sit  _ completely  _ still while they shove it into your spine. And that is  _ still  _ preferable to enduring labor pains.” 

 

“Don’t like that,” said Daryl.

 

“Yeah, neither did I,” Michonne agreed. 

 

“So what do I do? Just watch her hurtin’?” He was fiercely opposed to the idea of standing by idly while Carol suffered, and not being able to do a damn thing.

 

“You stay by her side, tell her she’s doing an amazing job, and do whatever she tells you, no question. If she tells you to massage her lower back and hips, you better be on your goddamn knees with your hands on her before she has time to blink.”

 

“Aight.”

 

“You might get lucky. Since it’s not her first rodeo the labor might go quicker, but there’s no way to know.”

 

“How long does it usually take?”

 

“Mine took 34 hours.”

 

“Jesus fucking christ.” 

 

Michonne clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Just be there for her,” she said seriously. “And you’ll do fine.”

 

Daryl considered his next words.   
  


“And what do I do...if somethin’ goes wrong?”

 

Michonne moved her hand, and gave a helpless shake of the head.

 

“Be there for her,” she said. “It’s the best you can do.”

 

Daryl breathed deep and covered his face with his hands, somewhat overwhelmed. While he was up in his feelings, Michonne asked, “Hey, do you know what she’s going to with her placenta?”

 

Daryl dropped his hands instantly. “Why?” he asked.

 

“I dunno, just curious. I had mine made into pills that I took daily until I ran out.”

 

Michonne jumped when Daryl clapped his hands together in triumph and jumped to his feet. “Come with me,” he said immediately.

 

“...Why?”

 

“‘Cause we need to find Glenn right now. You’re gonna tell him you ate your placenta.”

 

“Do I even want to know?”

 

“Probably not,” he said, tugging her up by the arm. “Let’s go.” 

 

—-

 

Daryl returned to their cell sometime later, showered and scrubbed cleaner than he’d been possibly in years. (He felt kind of naked without a thin layer of grime covering him, but he’d survive.)

 

He was surprised to find, when he walked in, to see that in his absence, Carol had set up the pack-n-play in the corner beside the bed, and had at some point went and gathered up some of the baby supplies they’d brought back, and organized it in the room. There were a few newborn outfits, nursing towels, a small stack of swaddling blankets, and pacifiers. Daryl eyed the new setup, and then sought out Carol, who was laying on her side on the bed again, and if the room wasn’t suddenly packed full of baby things, Daryl could have believed she hadn’t moved since he left her an hour ago. 

 

“Thought you didn’t want to set up the stuff,” he said carefully, sitting down the bucket of fresh water he’d dutifully retrieved, and tossing the clean rag onto the desk. 

 

“I didn’t, but not having it done was making me lose my mind, so I gave in,” Carol said, distracted. She was frowning up at the ceiling. “Do you think the ceiling is too dirty?” she asked.

 

“Aight, that’s where we’re drawing the line,” he said, plopping down on the edge of their mattress and taking Carol’s hand in his absently. “You’re not standing on nothing to clean a damn ceiling. You’ve got no balance, you’ll topple right over.”

 

“Well, obviously  _ I  _ wouldn’t do it.”

 

“I ain’t cleaning no ceiling neither.”

 

“What if the dust falls on the baby?”

 

Daryl leaned over and kissed her temple. “She’ll live,” he said. Carol sighed, conceding defeat. She furrowed her brow at him then.

 

“Why are you so sure the baby’s a girl?” she asked him.

 

“Dunno,” he said honestly. “Just am.” 

 

“Hmm,” Carol said, adjusting her head on her pillow. “I don’t even know if I think he’s a boy, I just wanted to be contrary.”

 

“I know.” Carol smiled. 

 

“Guess we’ll find out soon enough,” she said. The worry was subtle, but it was there. “ _ Very _ soon.”

 

“Yep,” Daryl agreed, not having anything else to offer. 

 

“You ready?” she asked him. 

 

Ready was such a relative thing to him at this point, he didn’t even know how to answer. Was he ready for the anticipation and fear to be over? Yes. Was he ready to witness a live birth? More than he was before he talked to Michonne, but if he were being honest, the answer was still no. Was he ready to be a parent? He didn’t even know—readiness, want, fear, and excitement were all so entangled he couldn’t tell where one started and the other ended. Eventually, he just gave her a shrug.

 

“Gotta be,” he said. 


	13. Chapter 13

Exactly one week and three days later, Daryl was startled awake even earlier than usual by the sudden subconscious realization that he was alone in bed. He propped himself up on an elbow, and blinked blearily in the dark, just barely making out the figure of Carol leaning against the cell door, gazing out between the bars.

 

“Hey,” he whispered. “You okay?” 

 

Carol hummed in the affirmative, her shadowed silhouette turning towards him. “I’m fine,” she said, speaking softly. “I think I’m in labor, though.” 

 

The words sounded so ordinary and casual that it took Daryl several seconds to process them. When he finally understood them, his heart instantly plummeted to his ass, as he shoved himself into a sitting position with so much force that he almost toppled over onto with other side. “ _ What _ ?” he asked sharply. “Why the hell didn’t you wake me?” 

 

“Relax, you needed the sleep,” Carol said, and how the fuck, Daryl wondered, did she sound so calm? “I woke up with contractions few hours ago, but they were really inconsistent, so I wasn’t sure if they were just unusually strong Braxton Hicks. They started getting stronger, though, and in the past forty five minutes or so they’ve been coming in ten minute intervals, I’ve been keeping track.” Eyes adjusting to the dark, Daryl saw the watch she held in her hand that she told him had been a gift from Ed, and if he weren’t in the process of freaking out, he would have found a smug satisfaction of her using it to track the labor pains for a baby she was having with another man.

 

Daryl scrambled out of bed, knocking his hip into the pack-n-play, muttering a curse, and then joining her at the doorway. 

 

“You sure this is it, then?” he asked, and she shrugged.

 

“Seems like it,” she said. “We’ll have to get Sarah to make sure, but something’s definitely happening. I never had a natural start to labor, though, the first one was caused by trauma, and the second was induced, so I might not be the best judge.”

 

Daryl briefly had the thought that it may be a good sign that this labor was already off to a completely different start than the ones of Carol’s children that were no longer with them, and he immediately chastised himself, feeling guilty.

 

“So what do we do? If this is real, then?”

 

“Well,” Carol said with a smile in her voice. “I imagine we have a baby. Or, well,  _ I’ll  _ have a baby, and you’ll owe me for the rest of your life.”

 

“We got chocolate mints in here,” Daryl said. “I got them at the birth center. You can have them as a, I dunno, post-birth dessert?”

 

“Oh honey,” Carol said, reaching out and taking Daryl’s hand. “No we don’t. I found those so long ago, they are very much gone.” Daryl nodded.

 

“I’ll figure somethin’ else out, then.” Carol then grimaced, her grip on Daryl tightening. Startled, he asked, “What’s wrong, you okay?” 

 

Carol held up a finger, shutting her eyes and sucking in a long breath through her nose, and exhaling through her mouth. She repeated this action several times, Daryl watching on, chewing on his lower lip harder than usual, until her long breathing turned into a relieved sigh. She opened her eyes and smiled a tired smile at him.

 

“That a contraction?” he asked. 

 

“Sure was.”

 

“It hurt?”

 

“Sure did. Best not to think about that, though, it’s only an uphill climb from here.” 

 

Daryl regarded her with bemused admiration. She sounded ready to face what was to come head on, meanwhile, Daryl was mentally shitting bricks. That didn’t matter, though, he told himself sternly. She didn’t need him to be afraid, she needed him to be there—all the way there, not caught up in his own anxieties. So he swallowed hard, stuffed them into his repression box (although the lid didn’t seem to be closing all the way this time), and kissed her forehead.

 

“You’re doing an amazing job,” he offered, parroting the words Michonne told him to say. Carol gave a baffled snort of laughter.

 

“Haven’t done much yet, babe, save the praise for when I’m really going through it.” 

 

Daryl blushed, glad for the dark, at the term of endearment. They’d been trying them out on each other here and there, and while he secretly loved the shit out of them, they still felt unfamiliar and he never knew how to react. That being said, now was  _ not the time _ , he reminded himself, to get caught up in his decades’ worth of emotional constipation. 

 

“We should get Sarah,” he told her.

 

“Mm, we definitely should, because I think my water just broke,” Carol said mildly, glancing down. “Either that or I just pissed myself, which I suppose isn’t out of the realm of possibility, but I’m pretty sure I’d know the difference.” 

 

She was cracking  _ jokes _ . She really was incredible. Daryl followed her gaze. It wasn’t like it was on TV, where there was a waterfall pouring out onto the floor. In fact, in the dark, and with her wearing pajama pants, he really couldn’t tell one way or the other, and had to just take her at her word. 

 

So far, this whole thing was surprisingly tranquil, and Daryl just hoped it wasn’t a red herring. 

 

“Let’s go get her, then,” he said, but Carol shook her head.

 

“Nuh-uh, you go,” she said. “I’m sort of in my element here, I’m not ready to break it. I don’t wanna go get dragged to that office until I gotta. Just bring her here.”

 

Carol had initially wanted to just give birth in their cell, but after discussing it, they’d (i.e. she and Sarah) had decided that: 1. They were lacking the space, especially now with all the baby stuff crammed in there, and 2. There would be more privacy in a room that had an actual door.

 

“You want me to...leave you?” Daryl asked. Just the idea alone went against his very nature. Carol huffed a kind laugh at him.

 

“Daryl, she’s literally just down the hall, nothing is gonna happen in the three minutes it takes you to go wake her and tell her to come here.”

 

“Don’t  _ say  _ things like that,” Daryl said with a wince.

 

“I never took you as superstitious,” Carol mused.

 

“Only when it comes to you.” 

 

“You’re sweet. Ridiculous, but sweet. Here: Go get Sarah. While you’re getting her, I’ll be in here, delivering the baby all by myself in this cold and lonely cell, and will resent you forever for not being here. Better?”

 

“No,” Daryl muttered. He wanted to protest more, but Michonne had told him to do whatever Carol said, and Carol said to go get Sarah, so that’s what he was gonna do. He cupped Carol’s face, kissed her quick on the mouth, and said, “Love you.”

 

“I love you, too, now go before I really do start going into serious labor.”

 

Daryl grumbled, but did as he was told. Stepping out of the cell was like cutting his own arm off, but again, this wasn’t his day to be a mess. He took a breath, mirroring Carol’s technique, and walked briskly down the hall to where Sarah slept. They’d given her a room in their cell block so that she’d be nearby Carol, for which Daryl was glad.

 

“ _ Hey _ ,” Daryl said sharply, stepping into her cell without any sort of prelude. “Wake up.” 

 

Sarah opened her eyes and jumped a little at the sight of Daryl looming over the foot of her bed. She quickly recovered. “I take it it’s time?” she asked, rubbing her face with her oversized sleeve hanging over her hand. 

 

“Yeah,” Daryl said impatiently. 

 

“How far apart of her contractions.”

 

“Think she said ten minutes. Her water broke, too. That means it’s for real, right?”

 

“Mm, that it does,” she said, raising her arms over her head in a stretch. Why was everyone _ so damn calm _ ?

 

“She don’t want to go to that warden’s office until you say she’s gotta. She wants you to go take a look at her.”

 

“Mkay, I’ll be there in just a minute. I’m going to make a quick stop to let Hershel know, too, just so we have another pair of hands on deck.”

 

This was good enough for Daryl. He nodded, and ducked out of her room as quickly as he came. He hurried back to his own cell, stepped inside, and saw...absolutely nothing wrong. Carol was where he’d left her, swaying back and forth a little with her eyes shut with a look of concentration awash on her face. 

 

“Sarah’ll be here in a minute. She’s tellin’ Hershel just so he can help if he’s gotta.” Carol hummed a tight hum. Daryl frowned. “You havin’ a contraction again?” he asked.

 

“Mhm,” she forced out. “You gonna ask that every time?” 

 

“No,” Daryl said quickly. “Sorry.” He was relieved when Carol smiled a little.

 

“‘S’okay.” She breathed in deep and opened her eyes to look at him. “Those are gonna happen a lot, though, so you might wanna just get used to them.” 

 

Daryl nodded obediently. And then he just stood there. He was, he realized, at a loss of what he was supposed to do next. He was hoping there’d be someone giving him orders, but Carol was handling herself better and with more grace than he ever could, and it’d be a few minutes yet until Sarah got there.

 

“Don’t be so tense,” Carol said, supporting her lower back with her hands. “This is good. This is how it’s supposed to be.” 

 

Daryl didn’t know how to explain that the calmness of everything is what was putting him so on edge. Calms always had storms following them, didn’t they? 

 

“You ain’t allowed to do that,” he said instead. “No comforting me. I don’t have a damn clue what I’m doin’, but that’s my problem, not yours. You tell me what you need, I’ll do it, that’s how this is gonna work.” Carol gave a somewhat bitter laugh, and Daryl frowned. “What?” he asked.

 

“Nothin’. It’s just, I’ve been labor for an hour, and you’re already a million times better than Ed ever was. You know what he did?” Daryl shook his head, not sure he even wanted to know. “When I told him I didn’t want any pain meds, he argued with me until I relented, because he didn’t want to spend his whole day listening to me bitch. His words. And at one point, he asked the doctor if they could just do a c-section, because it was taking too long.”

 

Daryl grimaced. “He didn’t deserve you,” he told her. “I don’t neither, come to think of it, but for some reason you think I do, and I ain’t about to question it.”

 

“Does telling you you’re worth the world to me and deserving of everything you could ever want count as me comforting you?”

 

Daryl smirked, even as he blushed. “Yeah, it does.”

 

“Ah, okay. Then I guess I’ll just tell you I love you and leave it at that.”

 

Daryl brought her to him and she rested her head on his chest. “Love you, too, baby,” he said, trying out the word and finding he liked it in this new context. “Love you somethin’ awful.” He burrowed his face in her hair and held her. When her next contraction hit, he swayed with her in silence, rubbing his fingers against her lower back. When it passed, she looked up at him with a smile.

 

“See, you’re learning,” she told him. He had no words to say to that, so he pushed her hair behind her ear and quirked up the corner of his lips. “I’m gonna change into somethin’ dry,” she said after a minute, pulling away gently. She went over and rifled through the neatly organized clothes she’d put in the drawers. “Do you know where I put that nightgown? The one that makes me look like a tent, but is super comfortable?”

 

“It’s in the baby bed,” Daryl said, nodding at the pack-n-play. “You had it in that drawer you called ‘ugly pregnancy clothes,’ but you figured it’d be good to wear for birth, ‘member.”

 

Carol’s face lit up.

 

“What would I do without you?” she said. Daryl cast his gaze down, but smiled. There were few things better, he decided, than the feeling of being loved.

 

—-

 

“It hurts,” Carol was whimpering, sitting on the edge of the bed they’d moved into the warden’s office. Daryl was crouched before her, holding her knees and looking up at her helplessly. He knew it would suck watching her be in pain, but he didn’t anticipate feeling so heartbroken over it. 

 

“I know, darlin’,” he said softly. “Just breathe through it, it’ll be over in a minute. You’re doing an amazing job.”

 

“Yes, you’ve said,” Carol said, wincing through the end of her contraction. They were hours in at this point, and the contractions were coming faster and harder every time. “Several times now. Who told you to say that?” she asked.

 

“What makes you think someone told me to say it?” Daryl asked, affronted, even though he had no right to be, because someone  _ had  _ told him to say it.

 

“Because it’s not something you’d say yourself, and you keep repeating it like some kind of mantra,” Carol said, moving her body every which way, trying to find a position that didn’t hurt so badly. Judging by the look on her face, the effort was proving futile.

 

“...Michonne,” Daryl admitted. Carol snorted.

 

“Well, as sweet as it is, I want to know what  _ you  _ would say, not Michonne.”

 

Of course, of all things, she’d want words. He sighed a little.

 

“I’d say…” he said, thinking hard. “That you’re kickin’ major ass, and that you’re stronger than all get out, and I am lucky as hell to be in love with such a badass.” He leaned up and planted a kiss on her sweaty forehead, and then added in a whisper, “And also that you’re doing an amazing job.”

 

Carol laughed a little.

 

“Not bad,” she muttered. She then let out a sharp exhale and gripped Daryl’s shoulder’s tight as another pain swept through her. She didn’t scream. She didn’t yell. She just breathed, heavy and shaky, with occasional, tiny sobs escaping with her breath. Daryl wondered, with a pang to the gut, if part of the reason she was so reserved was because she’d been trained to hide when she was hurt. He wanted to tell her she could go crazy if she needed to—could throw every swear and name in the book at him for putting her in this state, could shout like the world was ending—but he knew that she wouldn’t, even if he granted her permission. It wasn’t who she was, at least not anymore.

 

“Hey, Carol,” Sarah said when the pain passed, getting up from the chair she’d been sitting at, leafing through a pregnancy book, giving them privacy and only inserting herself when she was needed. “You’re in pretty active labor. Let’s do another check and see where we’re at.”

 

It was a testament to how much pain she was actually in that all she did was give a single nod. The first few times Sarah had checked her, Carol had cracked jokes (‘buy me a drink first’), or asked questions, but this time she just leaned back on the bed and let Sarah invade her privacy. Daryl thought of what Michonne had said about having no body autonomy, and silently resented Sarah’s touch on Carol, even as he knew it was necessary.

 

“I think you’re ready, Carol,” she said, taking off the rubber glove she’d used and tossing it into a bin.

 

“She is?” Daryl asked hopefully, any fear he had overshadowed by the desire to see Carol not in pain. She just needed to get through this last hurdle; the biggest one, but the last one nonetheless.

 

“Completely dilated, fully effaced. If the creek don’t rise, I bet we can have Baby here within the hour. All you need to do now Carol is listen to your body and let it do the work. Do you feel the urge to push?”

 

“It’s not strong,” Carol said, strained.

 

“Let’s try switching positions. Come on.” Sarah and Daryl helped Carol up, and Sarah rearranged a few pieces of furniture so that Carol could hold herself into a squat, and like a magic, the change seemed to do the trick. In almost no time, Carol was pushing, red in the face, her whimpers of pain getting a little louder. 

 

“Fuck,” she said, out of breath. “God, fuck, I can’t do this.”

 

“Yeah you can,” Daryl said automatically, and he found he wasn’t even saying it as some kind of robotic, ‘this is what I’m supposed to say.’ “You got this.” And something in his voice must have registered with her, because she looked up at him, and her teary, scared eyes steeled. She swallowed and nodded. And Daryl watched in awe as Carol did the impossible with her body. 

 

“Baby’s right there,” Sarah said after a few minutes of this, and with the next push, she announced, “We’ve got a head!” She turned to Daryl then, and said, “You want to catch your baby?”

 

Daryl froze. “Don’t you know how?” he asked, stricken.

 

“Of course I do, but I’m asking if you want to,” Sarah said, laughing.

 

“I ain’t no doctor.”

 

“You don’t have to be. Come on, Dad, get down here, I’ll show you what to do.”

 

Daryl wasn’t sure how he managed to kneel down next to Sarah, but he did. He stared at her, terrified. She gave him a kind smile, and took his hand and guided him over to gently cup his baby’s head. 

 

This was  _ so  _ much more than he had signed up for, he thought, hands trembling. 

 

“What if I drop her,” he barely managed to ask.

 

“You won’t,” Sarah said. She turned her attention to Carol and said, “Okay, Carol, I think one or two more pushes are gonna do it. You’re almost there.” She then explained to Daryl, “Once the shoulders are out, Baby is gonna slide right on out with ‘em, okay?” He nodded numbly. “Whenever you feel the next contraction, Carol!”

 

On the next pain, Carol ground down hard, and first came the shoulders, and in a single, swift rush, came the rest, just as Sarah had said, right into Daryl’s arms.

 

“Oh whoa, holy shit,” he said, catching the baby, shaking like a leaf but holding on tight. He stared down at the slimy, pink thing he was suddenly cradling, and startled when a sharp, pissed off cry filled the room. 

 

“Wow, I love you.” 

 

The awed words tumbled out of his mouth in a rush, completely involuntarily. He was awash with such an intense and crushing love all at once, that he wondered how he could have ever doubted being capable of it. Every second he’d spent over the past several months worrying about being too broken to provide the sort of affection his child deserved seemed laughable. He was in instant, undeniable,  _ unconditional  _ love.

 

“What is it?” asked Carol, panting, as Sarah helped into a better position. “Girl or boy?” 

 

Oh. Daryl hadn’t even thought to check. He forced himself to tear his gaze from the baby’s face, and did a quick check. A smug grin spread over his face.

 

“What do you think?” he asked. 

 

—-

 

Daryl, propped up next to Carol on the bed in the warden’s office, watched as she held their daughter, swaddled in a receiving blanket, close to her chest. The baby was fast asleep, and Carol needed to be, looking spent like no one ever had. 

 

“I kept waitin’ for somethin’ to go wrong,” Daryl admitted in a whisper. “I don’t think I stopped until Sarah had you stitched up and back in bed.”

 

“I heard you ask her about twelve times if she was sure I wasn’t bleeding too much,” Carol said, just as quietly. She turned her head to him and searched his eyes.

 

“Somethin’ Sarah said freaked me out, don’t worry about it.”

 

“You also asked her about perineal lacerations?” Carol asked, bemused.

 

“Oh. Yeah. A long while back I saw somethin’ ‘bout fourth degree perineal lacerations in some book you had. It had pictures. Like,  _ real  _ pictures.”

 

“Ah,” Carol said with understanding. “The dreaded vag-asshole.” 

 

Daryl blinked.

 

“Please never say that again,” he said. Carol snorted.

 

“Okay.” 

 

They both turned back to the baby in Carol’s arms. She was sucking her thumb, and making small little noises as she breathed in and out, and Daryl loved her more than he’d ever loved anything. He was feeling a little off-kilter, and when he examined why, he thought it was because he’d spent so much time waiting for it all to go to hell, that he didn’t quite know what to do now that it hadn’t. He was so used to wrong, he’d forgotten how to navigate right. But that was okay, he’d figure it out. That was a much better problem to have than the alternative. 

 

“What are we gonna call her?” Carol asked.

 

“Rose,” said Daryl immediately. He’d known that for ages, but knew that Carol hadn’t been in a place to hear it. A gradual smile spread over her face.

 

“It’s fitting, isn’t it,” she said. “It fits the narrative. There was Jackson, and he led to the girl who was lost on the trail, and now she’s here, as the Cherokee rose that bloomed to dry the tears.” She nodded sagely. “Yeah. Her name is Rose.”

 

“What I wanna know,” Daryl said. “Is where the hell that red hair came from?”

 

“Oh yeah, now’s probably a good time to tell you I’ve been foolin’ around with that red headed guy we brought in from Woodbury.”

 

“Stop,” Daryl said, nudging her shoulder, and Carol laughed.

 

“She probably gets it from me. I was a redhead.”

 

This gave Daryl pause. 

 

“Really?” he asked.

 

“Mhm. That hard to believe?”

 

“Kinda. Always pictured you as a blonde.”

 

“Ah, well, sorry to disappoint.”

 

“Not a disappointment,” he said sincerely. “Just a surprise is all. Hard to picture you as a ginger.”

 

“Mm, well mine was darker than hers is; more auburn.” She tilted her head at Rose. “I see she’s picked up your oral fixation. We’ll have to wean her off of that at some point, we don’t have any dentists to fix buck teeth anymore.”

 

“But what if she don’t want to be weaned off it?” Daryl asked. “I was a thumb sucker as a kid.”

 

“I believe that one hundred percent,” she said. “Why do I have a feeling I’m going to have a hard time getting you to tell her no? She’s three hours old and she’s already got you completely wrapped around her finger. She’s gonna come up to you when she’s older and ask for a pony and you’ll go get yourself nearly killed looking for one.”

 

Daryl considered this.

 

“You think she’d want a horse?” he asked seriously.

 

“Daryl.”

 

“I mean, cars ain’t gonna last forever, it’d make sense to get her a horse.”

 

“Can we wait until she can at least hold her head up before we have this conversation?”

 

Daryl grumbled. He did grabby hands at Carol and she handed Rose over to him. Rose squirmed a little, but stayed asleep. 

 

She was so small. There were tiny marks on her face, where her nails had scratched her in the womb. (‘What the fuck, that happens?’ Daryl had asked when Sarah explained it to him.) Daryl never wanted to put her down. He’d fought Sarah over cleaning her up after the cord had been cut, and was almost reluctant to give her even to Carol out of greed. Carol was probably right—he couldn’t imagine denying his daughter anything, but hell, she was perfect, she deserved to be spoiled.

 

“Long day, huh,” he said to Rose in a quiet voice, pitched a little higher than normal. “I love you like hell, and I’m pro’ly gonna tell you that about a hundred times a day, so get used to that.” He then added, under his breath, “And I’ll get you a horse if you want one.” 

 

“Dear god,” Carol said with an eye roll. Daryl felt no remorse. He leaned over to kiss the top of Rose's head, and inhaled. She had a unique scent, and it was the first sweet thing Daryl had smelled in years.

 

“Why's she smell so good?” he asked.

 

“New baby smell,” Carol said by way of explanation. “Nothing quite like it.”

 

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered. He ghosted a finger over Rose’s nose—a tiny version of Carol’s—and hand—an exact replica of his—and asked, “So who’s gonna break the news to Rick that our kid is way cuter than his?”

 

“Everyone thinks their kid is cuter than everyone else’s,” Carol argued.

 

“‘Kay, but she’s cuter than Asskicker, right?”

 

“I mean, yeah.”

 

Daryl hummed in approval, then said, “By the way, can you do me a favor, and if she ever asks, can you tell her my first words to her were, ‘I love you,’ and not, ‘holy shit?’”

 

“Absolutely not, I’m telling  _ everyone  _ your first words to her were holy shit.”

 

Daryl couldn’t even be mad. “Figures.” He looked over at Carol and regarded her. The bags under her eyes were dark, and her skin was coated in dried sweat. She was beautiful, and he loved her tremendously, too—and loved Rose even more because she was a part of her. He said, “You really did do amazin’. And I ain’t sayin’ that because Michonne told me to.”

 

“Thank you,” Carol said. She shook her head. “I think I was waiting for it to go wrong, too. I think it’s just what we’ve grown to expect—no happy endings—and who the fuck knows what the future holds, but she’s here now. She’s healthy, and she’s perfect, and she’s  _ alive _ . She’s a little miracle.”

 

“Nah,” Daryl said, and at Carol’s questioning look, he explained, “She ain’t no miracle. She’s a choice. Or a chance. She’s somethin’ we could have been totally wrong about, but we weighed the odds, and it turns out we were on the right track all along.”

 

“Just us, right?” Carol said, leaning her head against Daryl’s shoulder. He nodded, kissing the top of her head. 

 

“The three of us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thar she be, lads. i'm training to be a doula, this was a super self-indulgent fic, idec. i hope you had fun. there iiiiis a sequel in the works, if that is of interest to anyone, tho it's gonna be a bit before it goes up, because i have to do real-life writing portfolio junk for grad school. c'est la vie. let me know if this is a universe you'd even want to hear more about, because i'll tell ya, shit gets wild. 
> 
> until next time, friends,
> 
> -diz


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